Battered Souls
by deepwater1978
Summary: A doomed woman. A dangerous and mysterious man. And an epic passion that cannot be denied… She may be his worst enemy… He may be her only hope…. They may be wrong for each other but to survive, they must trust each other with their lives—and their hearts.
1. Chapter 1

_MYSTIC FALLS_

Elena Gilbert avoided the restaurant host's patient gaze, trying to think what to say, hyper-aware that he was waiting, one hand on the back of the chair she was to sit in. The Mystics was one of the best fine dining places in Mystic Falls and this kind host had led her to a lovely little window table. An orchid stood sweetly in a vase at the centre of it, and the view of bustling town centre of Mystic Falls was amazing.

To anybody else, it would look like the best table in the place.

To Elena it looked like Russian roulette.

She was quite familiar with the game. It always used to be Russian roulette whenever her step uncle John Gilbert beckoned her over to his easy chair, because there would be no telling whether he meant to hit her or kiss her. It was Russian roulette back when she used to report him to the local cops for battery, because you never knew which ones were in his pocket. It was Russian roulette whenever she had tried to escape him, because it might mean freedom, but it could just as easily mean the horror of being dragged back to him after defying him. It had been Russian roulette when she had helped that FBI agent gather evidence to put John in prison, because it was either the end of her problems or the beginning of worse ones.

Elena was so done with Russian roulette.

"I would like to sit at the back if possible. I want privacy," she said, thanking him profusely and asking to sit in the back. She pointed to a table in the dark corner near the EXIT sign. The host shot her a questioning glance. She gave him a sunny smile. Always best just to smile.

He led her to the gloomier but safer corner.

"This is perfect. Thank you," she said with a little nod. An ultra-polite thanks.

When the waiter came by, Elena gave him her order plus money for the bill and tip all at once. This got her another questioning look. She responded with another sunny smile. What could she say? She was the kind of gal who liked to flee a restaurant with a clear conscience.

A full two years she had been in Mystic Falls with no sign of John's thugs, but you would never relax your guard with John and his thugs.

A friend had once suggested that John was the wrong name for him, because it sounded too pleasant. John Gilbert was the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing—or python in sheep's clothing, as John would likely put it.

John charmed you with his smiles and money and manners, and once you realized he was squeezing the life out of you, it was too late.

John was so powerful that even being in an Arkansas prison couldn't stop his muscular and veiny arm from circling the globe in pursuit of her.

Even dining outside the safety of the house where she had lived and worked these past two years was a gamble, but it was her birthday, dammit! And she was careful, wearing her tinted glasses and taking the gloomy back table.

It was just as she was taking a sip of her expensive chardonnay that she saw Trevor, John's right-hand thug, entered the restaurant and walked up to the host's stand.

She nearly choked on her drink.

She couldn't be sure it was Trevor—she only caught a flash of his face before he turned, but you didn't wait around with a man like Trevor.

You ran.

She put back her tinted glasses and rose from her seat—slowly. Fast movements attracted attention.

She strolled casually toward the back EXIT sign, heading down the dark little hall beyond it, picking up her pace.

She passed a little door set into the wall and continued on, heart racing. It had to be him. Even the way he stood had set off alarm bells, and you had to trust alarm bells. Sometimes alarm bells were your only friends.

She rushed on and saw the EXIT sign at the end of the long, dark hallway. Calm down, she told herself. She would attract attention if she panicked and she couldn't risk it. She slowed, walking along the hallway, heart pounding. She could discern a door at the end, but did people use it? Could it even be opened?

Still she went forward. Sometimes it was all you had left. When she hit the door, she turned the knob and pushed with all her might.

The door gave a titch, then stopped dead. Boarded up on the other side. She rammed it with her shoulder.

No go.

She spun around, overcome with the instinct to freeze in the dark like a rabbit, to be very small.

No. No freezing. Move, move, move.

She pulled her gun from her purse.

Nobody coming.

Maybe it wasn't Trevor out there. Or maybe he hadn't seen her.

But if it was Trevor, and if he had seen her, he would know she was trapped. He would be sitting out there relishing her fear like a twisted connoisseur, enjoying its rich, robust undertones and high notes of hysteria. Trevor had enjoyed mind fucking her almost as much as John had. And if he caught her, he would bring her back to the Richmond and straight to John's prison. For the conjugal visit from hell.

The seconds crept on. She couldn't go back through the restaurant. But she couldn't stay. If somebody turned on the hallway lights, they would see her and raise a fuss.

Elena remembered she had passed a little door. Was it a closet? She could hide in there and call for help. She could defend herself in there.

She crept back down the hall and tried the knob. Open. She slipped in, eased the door shut, and flattened against it. When she turned on her phone light she saw it was a linen closet. Dry storage. She spied the hanging string for an overhead bulb, but she didn't dare pluck it. Light would show through the crack under the door.

She thought Mystic Falls was a safe place but she was not sure right now. She had been located.

Her intuition had been telling her something was wrong these past weeks. And this was a whole lot of wrong.

Two years. Elena had almost been feeling like herself again.

She got up her contacts screen, scrolled to Caroline's image, and hit the call button.

"Hello."

"Caroline," Elena whispered, comforted just to hear her voice. Caroline was her best friend and saviour.

"Elena! What? Is something wrong?"

Elena stared into the darkness. "I think I saw Trevor."

"Are you sure?"

"No. Well, my gut is surer than my eyes. No, I think it is him. I don't know. Crap!"

"Where are you?"

"In the linens closet of the Mystic Falls," Caroline said.

"You are in town centre? What is going on?"

"I got extra paid. I thought I would have something nice to eat. Just as a treat..." She didn't say it was her birthday; Caroline would feel awful to have forgotten it. "I saw him and I beelined for the exit but it was locked. Now I'm hiding like a freak. If it is him…Caroline…"

"It is not him. It couldn't be," Caroline said. "Breathe."

"What if it is?"

"I'm coming over there. I will recognize that jackass anywhere."

"Wait—what if he recognised you?" Elena said.

"He won't."

"Caroline, wait!" Elena was frantic now. "This is serious. What if you attract his attention?"

Caroline snorted. "It is not him anyway. If he is in Mystic Falls, it means you have been found. He would already have you."

"Maybe he is waiting for backup."

"It doesn't make sense. I'm getting in my car right now."

Elena gave her layout details, told her about the door, and described Trevor's clothes, not that Caroline needed it. She had seen Trevor and she would remember the man.

"Just take a look in the front window and tell me if it is him," Elena said. "Do not put yourself in danger, okay? I got away once, I will get away again." A lie. Trevor would never let her get away so easily again.

"If it is him, Klaus will kick his ass. Mystic Falls is our town. You don't mess with the Mikaelson in Mystic Falls."

"If it is him, you walk away."

"No, I will send Klaus after him and pry the boards off that back door myself, in which case you owe me a manicure."

"With jewelled decals," Elena said. "What is wrong with me? Letting myself get trapped. Walking around without being realised I'm being followed. I let myself get a false sense of safety."

"What is false about it? There is nowhere safer than Mystic Falls." Caroline reassured her. "Trust me, it is not Trevor. I'm just around the corner. I will be there shortly."

"A gal likes options," Elena said.

Caroline snorted, but Elena was serious. Her passport had expired months ago. It was silly of her not to get a new one. What if she had to bolt?

Elena grabbed a stack of linen napkins and put them over her gun. The napkins would act as a silencer if Trevor busted in.

She had only known Caroline three months in Richmond, but Caroline had taken up her cause like a warrior when she realized what danger Elena was in. It had been like a suspense movie, the two women outwitting Trevor and then Caroline had talked her into really disappearing—in Mystic Falls. Caroline had finished her degree by then, she was on her way back home anyway, but still, it was a big thing that Caroline had done, getting her away from Trevor. Elena and Caroline had travelled to Mystic Falls together and Caroline had cajoled her gangster lover into giving Elena a singing job at the Mystic Grill. Together the women had come up with an old-fashioned nightclub singer getup that involved a hat with netting, which concealed Elena's face and added a note of torch singer mystique. Caroline was like a sister to Elena. More than a sister. Elena owed Caroline everything.

Elena slid to the floor with her knees to her chest, feeling the top of her sheer stockings. Her birthday present to herself—she had passed a shop selling them and couldn't resist.

John would have hated the stockings. He had always made her dress up like magazine pictures he had shown her. She had gotten good at being a fashion chameleon, which came in pretty handy on the run. She knew how to blend in.

The sheer stockings had appealed to the girl she had been before John had come along. They had appealed to the songstress poet full of funky style.

Her birthday present to herself. And like hell she would take them off.

Footsteps. Heavy. A man.

She wrapped her fingers around the Ruger .22, feeling the little dots on the grip and fixing the napkins over it. Quiet as a mouse, she slid up to a standing position against the wall behind the door.

Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears she barely heard the handle turn.

The door swung open. She backed tight to the wall, hand out, using her fingertips to ease it to a gentle stop so it wouldn't bang into her. The light went on.

Rustling fabric. Paper.

And just like that, the light went off and the door slammed shut.

Her shoulders sunk in relief. Just a staffer grabbing napkins or towels.

You are okay.

Except she wasn't. Everything was wrong these days—eerie in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

When the footsteps faded out, she sat back down and risked the flash of light to check her email on her smartphone for the twentieth time. Still nothing from her brother. That was something eerie that she could put her finger on.

Jeremy had forgotten her birthday.

She and her brother were close as peas in a pod, and he had forgotten her birthday. Jeremy was a major birthday celebrator.

Jeremy had sounded odd in his emails all month, but this was a new level of odd. Again that belly-twist of fear.

She pressed her phone against her chest. What if Jeremy was sick? In trouble? Had John gotten to him? No, Jeremy would have given her the signal. Her mind chased in frantic circles.

You are between a rock and a pointy place, John always said to her, eyes lit with glee. He loved to change around sayings like that, and whenever he had delivered one of his changed-around sayings, he would stare at her afterward, expecting her to react. He fancied himself a poet of sorts, but he was no poet. Poetry was about connecting with people, not hurting them or isolating them. The dusty old poets Elena so loved—Keats, Byron—they helped her feel less alone, as though she was linking with another soul across time. That was poetry.

No matter how bad things got, she had always had poetry. And now she had her gun, too, and she damn well knew how to use it. Klaus had allowed her to use the shooting range in the basement of the Mikaelson's tower—one of the upsides to the Mikaelson family being a little shady. You didn't find a shooting range at the Hilton. What the hell; Elena was shady these days, too, what with her fake life story. Even her appearance was fake. She had high-lighted streaks of red on her dark brown hair.

Not twenty minutes later, there was a soft knock at the closet door, followed by a quick triple knock. Elena let her eyes drift shut with relief. Their old signal. Caroline always remembered things like that. Elena stood and creaked open the door.

Caroline Forbes stood there smiling in a floral printed dress that set off her blond hair. "Coast is clear."

"Did you see him?"

"Yeah, and it is not Trevor."

"Thank you! Uh!" Elena shoved her gun in her purse and threw her arms around her friend. "You are sure? You got a good look? I was so sure it was him. He even felt like him."

"It wasn't."

"You saw the one I meant, though, right?" Elena asked, tidying up the napkins. "He was wearing a bright green and white-striped polo shirt."

"I know. And jeans. I passed right by the guy. I looked in his eyes. He probably thought I was hitting on him. I see why you thought it is him, but it is not."

"Is he still out there?"

Caroline shrugged. "He looked like he was leaving. He only had a beverage."

Beverage.

Caroline talked in restaurant and hotel lingo. She had been in the Richmond to get her hospitality degree. Destined to manage the Mikaelson's family hotels.

"You are sure," Elena said. "I was sure it was him."

"For the millionth time. And, think about it—it was always John's investigators who found you first, and Trevor would come after. If an investigator had found you, you would know about it. And Trevor wouldn't be sitting on his ass in an overpriced tourist restaurant."

Elena closed the closet door, smiling at Caroline's little dig. "Though I was looking so forward to that mushroom steak."

Caroline pouted. "You don't like the food at Mystic Grill?"

Elena snorted. The Grill served the best pub food in Mystic Falls but the Mystics offered fine dining which was completely different. The atmosphere at the Grill was different as well. It was mostly the locals, and this week, a lot of the Mikaelson's scary business partners. Like a convention for sketchy characters.

"I hope I didn't pull you out of anything," Elena said as they headed out of the dark hall.

"In fact, I was quite bored waiting for Klaus to call me. I should thank you for this."

Elena put back on her glasses as they hit the dining room. The man who looked like Trevor was nowhere to be seen. Neither was her chardonnay. Her table had been set with new linens. Well, what did she expect?

The host looked at them funny as they walked through the half-full dining room.

They pushed out the doors into the furnace blast of air that was midday Mystic Falls during summer time. Cars and bikes careened by madly.

"Ask me to take you here if you want fine dining next time. Or ask one of Klaus' wingmen to accompany you." Caroline looked over at her. "You know, Elijah likes you. He will be thrilled if you ask him to go out."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Elijah is a nice guy but I'm not interested in a relationship at this stage."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure how long I will be staying here," Elena explained. "Trevor is looking for me. I might need to leave this town."

"You are not leaving," Caroline said firmly. "Klaus and I will protect you. You are safe here."

"Jeremy is still in Texas."

"Has your brother emailed you yet?"

"No. And I'm worried."

"He probably has a girlfriend."

"Something's wrong. He sounds…wrong. What if John's guys got to him?"

"Has he used your code?"

Begonia. He was supposed to use the word begonia in an email at the first sign of John danger. Begonia. Be gone. "No."

"Well, then?" Caroline opened the door of her car. "He is probably busy. You worry too much, Elena."

Elena got inside the passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt. "But what if he is sick? All he emails about lately is TV and current events. It is like he wants to email me, but not really email me."

Caroline stabbed a finger at her. "This is why you thought you saw Trevor. You are spooked about your brother. You watch. You will have an email from him tomorrow, I bet." She looked down at Elena's stockings, which looked perfect with her black sheath dress. "You look sexy, girl."

"It is not. This is just plain stocking."

"You should wear them for your show," Caroline said. "It looks great on you. You should wear stocking more often."

"I have always loved stocking but John…" Elena cut herself off. "Well, never mind."

"You need to forget about John and move on with your life." Caroline turned on the engine and drove away from the Mystics. "I like your singing."

"Thanks," Elena said. Nobody ever paid attention to her, anyway. She was background music. Music to have conversations by. Elena used to despair about being ignored because her songs were the only deep-down truth in her whole fake life.

Stupid.

When on the run from a murderous and rageful step uncle, you wanted to be ignored. That was the whole point.

"I need to renew my passport soon," she said. "This was a sign—be ready for anything. I think I have gotten too secure here at Mystic Falls. You don't know what it was like sitting in that closet. I kept thinking, what if I have to rabbit right now? Hardly any money. An expired passport."

"You worry too much," Caroline said. "You are safe here. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

"Still," Elena said. "I want to start carrying big money and a valid passport at all times. I'm thinking about moving to Atlanta…"

Caroline began to protest. "Elena…"

"I don't want to keep bugging you and Klaus," Elena went on. "I need a new passport. This was my wake-up call. I need to handle this."

"You want to end up in Atlanta by yourself?" Caroline scowled. "It is freezing there. No, I'm not letting you go. I will talk to Klaus again. I will make sure he keeps an eye here in Mystic Falls."

Elena nodded, unconvinced. "I need cash, too. Do you think I can get another job somewhere?"

"You have worked too hard already," Caroline exclaimed. "You need rest. You need to have a life."

"I'm fine, Caroline. I need the money, just in case…"

"There is no just in case," Caroline said firmly. "Trust me, nothing is going to happen to you."

"Okay," she said, dismayed.

Caroline smiled and chatted brightly as her car wove in and out of traffic.

Elena half listened, unable to shake the feeling of danger pressing in.

Maybe Caroline was right. She worried too much. Mystic Falls was a safe place.

But she still couldn't shake the feeling of danger and the cold she felt going down her spine every now and then.


	2. Chapter 2

Damon Salvatore straightened his tie as he strolled past the row of tall, slender torches that illuminated the most popular pub and café of Mystic Falls – the Mystic Grill. The tables were occupied by mostly the local residents of Mystic Falls, but clustered near the front were some of the most notorious arms dealers on the planet.

And he had arrived to screw each and every one of them. With his ears.

Damon adjusted his glasses, resisting the impulse to study the faces. He wouldn't be recognized, but it wouldn't do to be remembered. He wore a linen suit—top quality, just a bit rumpled, and his dark brown, almost black hair had grown just over his ears, swept back like a proper academic's. His glasses had whisper-light frames, very man of letters, for his Joseph Silas, PhD, linguistics expert persona. It was easy for Damon to play Dr Joseph Silas. It was what he did once upon a time.

In a sunnier lifetime.

Nobody seemed to notice that Dr Joseph Silas accepted teaching and speaking assignments in zones of unrest, or that the world's most notorious terrorists and predators were taken into custody in the very cities he visited, often just days after he left.

Damon scanned around. The Grill was crowded at this hour of the night, but then he saw it—the light of a cell phone illuminating a scruffy cheek. He made his way to the far edge of the courtyard and stopped in front of a table occupied by a lone man with short blonde hair. "Nice night for a drink."

His old friend Alaric—Ric for short—gave him a level glance. "Clears the mind." This format of greeting served as an all-clear signal among the Associates. Not that they needed it; the Associates were tighter than a family; they would know if something was off from a mere look. But the greeting was protocol. Part of their culture.

Damon sat.

"I left a message," Ric said. "The Russians have a hitter on you."

Damon crossed his legs, stiff from the sedentary existence of the adjunct professor, teaching and grading. "Good luck with that."

"It could be Parker."

Damon shrugged it off. Nobody knew what he looked like—as Joseph Silas the linguistics expert or as Damon the spy. A grainy video had circulated for some years, but it was useless, even to a legendary hitter like Kai Parker.

"People will have guessed you are here," Ric said. "Somebody is out there waiting for you to screw up, old friend."

Damon scanned the crowd up front. "Let them fill my belly full of bullets."

Ric gave him a dark look, but he damn well knew: Damon would do anything to stop the auction of the TZ-5. He would give up everything. His humanity. Even his life.

In a lot of ways, Damon had died long ago. He was just an operative these days. A tool. A charming, deadly overachiever. Nothing touched him. He felt nothing. No feelings. That was part of his power.

"Your belly full of bullets would be the opposite of my plan," Ric said.

Damon watched the stage. They were setting up for some singer.

Noise. Great.

The TZ-5 was a disturbingly advanced weapon—a powerful remote control drone with a wingspan of just seven feet and deadly laser weapons, and it could be powered from miles away by lasers. It was configurable enough to take out an entire airport or a single man running down a crowded street. In short, it made US drones look like plastic playground toys. The Association had been hunting the TZ for two and a half years. The man who possessed it would finally be turning up here at the hotel, ready to sell. The highest bidder would get the blueprints and the prototype, exclusively. It would shift the balance of power, no matter who got it. Lots of innocent people would die.

A waiter came over to light the candle on their table and their hands came up in unison. "No thanks." Neither wanted their faces illuminated.

Ric smiled at the waiter. "We would love another round of beer. And more of those chips. They are delicious."

The waiter nodded and left.

Ric shifted his eyes to Damon. Ric wore a lavender silk shirt under his dinner jacket. Quietly stylish. Quietly lethal. He was the Association's resident assassin.

"Is there a show?" Damon asked.

Ric pulled out his mobile and scanned through emails. "Woman singer. An American."

"Not too loud, I hope."

"You won't even notice. Barely-there ballads," Ric said. "Sexy, what you can see of her. Unmemorable. Walking wallpaper." Ric chose his words with imagination and precision. Damon liked that in a friend. Ric put away his phone. "What are you carrying?"

"My regular." Meaning a Smith & Wesson Platinum 500.

Ric raised his eyebrows. Meaning, and? What else are you carrying?

"Party favour." Damon angled his gaze down, indicating the .22 at his ankle.

Ric waited. Eyebrows raised again.

"I was just teaching class for God's sake," Damon said.

The assassin's hands disappeared under the table. A few moments later, Damon felt a tap on his knee. "Take it," Ric said. "It will beat a metal detector, too."

Damon felt the soft leather, the buckle, the ridges of the grip. Ric's favourite Sig. "Ric."

"Put it on. Humour me," Ric said.

Ric often showed affection through firearms. He lent them and even gave them as gifts, the way a mother might dole out mittens and cookies. Damon kind of loved that about Ric. He loved everything about Ric. Of all the Associates, Ric was most like a brother to him; they had saved each other's asses more times than he could count. Damon strapped the holster around his free ankle and sat back, eyeing his old friend. "Happy?"

Ric gave him a wry glance then nodded toward the stage. "Take a closer look at the far-right table up in the front."

Damon stood as though to search his pockets, scanning the front. Six, seven tables of dealers. He noticed the North Koreans in the sea of faces, and even a table of Glorious Light operatives. And he had never known the Peruvians to be acquainted with Dmitri Turgenov's clan, but they were mixing it up now. With one of the New Tong out of Texas. Damon sat. "It is like international arms dealers gone wild up there."

"All flown in over the last two days. Who knew they'd all show so early?"

They were waiting for a man known only by one name: Jazzman.

"They all want to pre-empt the auction," Damon said.

That was the worry, that the weapon would change hands before the auction, and the Associates would never see it again. Until people started dying.

"The new thinking is that Jazzman is here already," Ric said, "mingling, assessing his buyers, waiting to unmask himself."

"That is what I would do if I were him," Damon said. "If he is here, I will find him."

Ric nodded once. A simple, precise reply.

Nobody escaped Damon Salvatore. Back when he had been a rising star in the linguistics world, he could spend entire months studying the way different people pronounced a diphthong like the ow in low, and draw all kinds of conclusions about what that meant. He could see a universe in a single word choice. He used his expertise to understand people, and by extension, humanity itself.

These days, he used his ability to ferret out scum. Fugitives who had used plastic surgery to change their appearance. Killers.

The TZ could turn out to be the most prolific killer of all. This was the case he had been born for.

Jazzman had stolen the TZ in a bloody attack on an independent lab in Panama over two years ago—freelance scientists working on their own designs to sell on the world market. Governments across the globe went on red alert when the news got out that the TZ had been stolen. Nobody talked about it publicly, but contingency plans were made from Washington D.C. to Tokyo.

Then Jazzman and the TZ had simply fallen off the map. For two and a half years, the security community had held its collective breath. There was some hope out there that Jazzman had hidden the TZ and gotten himself killed.

Until last month, when talk of this auction started up. Jazzman was back, and he was hot to sell. The sale was announced during a series of conference calls, during which Jazzman used sophisticated voice distortion software that disguised his gender and his accent during the calls—everything but his word choice.

And that was all they had to go on to find Jazzman. His choice of words.

Worked for Damon Salvatore.

Damon had studied the recording extensively, charting the man's errors and idiosyncrasies. He mined his word choices and frequency of use. He got to understand Jazzman's speech habits well enough to be able to recognize him to a 99.5% certainty—if he could hear him speak. Not just a few words; it had to be a real conversation.

That would be the trick. To get close enough to the dealers to hear conversations.

Ric, on the other hand, was hunting the old-fashioned way. With a very powerful rifle and a list drawn up by Wes, the leader of the Associates.

"How many of them are here at the moment?"

"About thirty so far," Ric said. "Turns out the Mikaelson own a few family hotels here in this place."

"Ah, Mikaelson's hospitality. Ideal for the romantic exchange of weaponry." The Mikaelsons were a powerful clan with strong connections to the Richmond business community and the New Tong out of Texas.

Ric speculated aloud on ways to get close enough to the tables of dealers to record their conversations. The Arabs would be the problem—they weren't mixing with the other arms dealers.

Damon didn't think Jazzman was an Arab. English could be Jazzman's second language, but Arabic wouldn't be his first. But he let Ric spin on. He was soaking in Ric's tone, the gestalt of his speech and manner. Ric had lost his wife some years back and he had turned darker and more nihilistic since. Anybody could see when a man held himself apart from the crowd; Ric was smart enough not to do that. But Damon could hear Ric's remoteness in his language itself. More passive constructions. Fewer content words and third person pronouns. The tone, the delivery, even the unsaid. As if Ric was drifting away. Sometimes when Damon listened to him, he had the impulse to clamp a hand onto his friend's arm, to be his anchor. Damon knew what it was like to lose somebody.

The assassin gave him a steely glance. "I know that look. I know what you are doing."

Damon tilted his head.

"Back off," Ric said. "I won't be one of your puzzles."

"Fair enough," Damon said.

The waiter set down two beers and a plate of fried chips. Ric thanked him, smoothing a stray bit of hair back out of his eyes. "Will the libidinous student body survive the week without their eminent guest lecturer?"

"They will have to parse their tender sentences without my strong, sure hand, I'm afraid," Damon said.

A smile in Ric's eyes. He always seemed so amused by the groupies Damon got when he was forced to play tousled, self-effacing Dr Joseph Silas. Damon wasn't one to sleep with students, though. There were classes to teach, papers to grade, books to write, and severed hands to not think about.

Damon had a lot of sex, but it was always for the job—just him, gathering intelligence, a shining Viking with ill intent.

Damon caught sight of various players: The Russian clan leader. The Valdez brothers. Then he spotted Thorne, the notorious Hangman lieutenant. "Thorne is here," he mumbled.

"Party is really starting now," Ric mumbled. Things got dangerous when Thorne came around.

Up on the stage, a boy in a white V-necked T-shirt set up a microphone stand. Then he set out a stool and pushed two large vases of roses onto either side of it, so that they would frame the singer.

A minute later, a lone woman with a mass of loose, dark curls walked out onto the stage. She had on a pillbox hat with a net that came down to conceal the top half of her face. Her dress was a classic little black number, worn with black panty hose. She lifted a hand in a wave, smiling at the audience, then she adjusted her microphone with deft movements, her skin glowing in the torchlight.

His eyes fell to her panty hose which was too-tight squeezing the flesh just below her.

Damon knew, from his extensive experience undressing the opposite sex, that black panty hose was popular with today's fashions. This woman was wearing them in a way that made her looked somehow different. The effect was dirty and delicious.

Damon couldn't take his eyes off her.

He wished she would pull off her hat so he could see her face. And good God, he wanted to hear her speak. Her tone. Her words.

Damon could feel Ric's eyes on him. He needed to stop staring at the singer. He tore his gaze away and focused on Thorne, who stood up and moved to where the Finns sat. He fought to find something intelligent to say. "Tenacious, painful, annoyingly indestructible. Have to admire a man who lives up to his name."

"Thorne?" Ric asked.

Damon nodded. It wasn't like him to get distracted. He had been feeling a little feverish in the last day or two, maybe that was it. Or maybe it was the hat, hiding her identity.

"I would love to hear Thorne speak," he continued. "Thorne could be Jazzman. Or the Finns. Or Valdez. That whole table is suspect. What I wouldn't give to be that potted palm."

The potted palm stood at the intersection of four tables of arms dealers. They wouldn't be saying anything sensitive out there, but Damon didn't care. A rambling conversation about the weather would work for his purposes.

"If we could get a listening device in that potted palm—"

"Wouldn't work," Ric said. "The dealers cluster in different areas every night. And these minimalist tables. Candles and drinks." Nowhere to hide a microphone, he meant. Putting it underneath would be ineffective in this din.

"We should have tech look all the same."

Up on the stage, a boy brought the singer a guitar. She hooked the strap around her neck and tuned a string or two, then strummed a chord. "How is it going out there?"

Damon straightened. Ric had thought her unmemorable? Walking wallpaper?

Nobody answered, but she kept on. "I'm pretty goddamn happy to be here tonight, singing for all of you," she said.

The accent. Virginia, or maybe Ohio, Damon thought.

Again she smiled. "I wish everyone a good evening." She tuned a string, strummed. "I hope you will like this song as much as I do."

With that she began to sing in a breathy, husky voice. You could barely call it singing, although there was a certain cadence to it.

Damon listened to the poignant words of the song, wondering if Ric was noticing them, too, or if he, like most men, merely listened to the music and ignored lyrics.

Open up next to you and my secrets become your truth

And the distance between that was sheltering me comes in full view

Hang my head, break my heart built from all I have torn apart

And my burden to bear is a love I can't carry anymore

All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe

Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something

Out of breath, I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again

As Damon listened on, it came to him that this was a list of things lost. Lost forever.

His throat began to feel thick as he dug into the song. It was relentless, the way the lyrics was making him feel. He didn't feel normally. Damon Salvatore never felt anything. But he felt.

He swallowed, chest full of ragged energy.

Stop.

Was it possible his fever was worse than he thought? Maybe he was running down with a flu.

"What?" Ric's whisper was like a shotgun in the torchlight.

Damon shook his head. "Nothing." He had to pull himself together. Quickly he set to analysing the song, breaking it into manageable parts. Yes, the singer had a good vocal. She had a great body. The rhythm of the song she picked was decent. Yes, overall, her performance was good. Clever, that was all.

He took a deep breath. Analysing her did the trick. He was feeling much more under control.

She was clever with her choice of her song, and he had a fever. Case closed.

"What is it?" Ric asked, scanning the audience. He had thought Damon had seen trouble.

Damon waved his hand at the stage. "Please. Couldn't Jazzman have picked a more descent place with a better singer? Or maybe a nightclub with strip dancers?"

Ric furrowed his brow. "You have a problem with her?"

"Don't you find this song a bit…emotionally manipulative?"

"What do you mean?"

"Designed to pull at people's heartstrings," Damon said. "She has a good vocal and is good in choosing the song which suits her but these emotionally manipulative, hyper-nostalgic lyrics…"

Ric smiled.

"What?" Damon asked.

"Heaven forbid the great Damon Salvatore should be made to feel something."

Damon crossed his legs. "I feel the urge to put an ice pick through my ear right now. Does that count?"

Ric kept smiling. He took a swallow of his beer in a very no comment way.

She continued to sing. He added a bit of West Virginia as influence laid over that accent. Her body was swaying along with the music. Something of a magpie with the lyrics of the song she had picked. Something very different about this woman, he thought. He had been like that, way back when. Back when words were a pleasure. Back when language was about interacting instead of hunting. Back when he could feel.

As she sang on, he found himself getting sucked back in. Damn, the feeling flowing through him just wouldn't stop.

He put his hand to his chest, wanting to push down the sharp feeling. He flashed on a memory of his fiancée Rose, standing in the rain in a party dress, laughing. It was then he had known he loved her.

He fought the memories but they came anyway—that night ten years ago. He saw his parents and his brother Stefan and Rose, playing the adjective game as the train rolled through the dark jungle. His father had pantomimed drinking a soda standoffishly. It had taken forever for the four of them to guess standoffishly. They had felt sure he was drinking the soda impudently or superciliously. Damon had guessed presumptuously. God, they had all been such nerds about that game. That was the last time he had seen them alive. After his father drank his soda standoffishly, Damon had taken a walk through the cars, stretching his legs, listening to dialects.

He was three cars down when the bomb hit.

He pressed on his chest harder but the emotions wouldn't go down. It was with great effort that he fixed his attention back on the arms dealers. "Blue hat sitting with the New Tong of Texas," he mumbled. "Who is that?"

"We think he is Valdez cartel." Ric pointed out the new Valdez players. "We heard chatter that Jazzman is picking up some sort of package here."

"What sort of package?"

"We don't know," Ric said. "Wes thinks it is unrelated to the TZ. Maybe drugs. We don't know anything."

They discussed the idea of getting other Associates close enough to record the conversations. Damon had created a quick and dirty software program they could feed a transcription into. Even if Damon was killed in the next five minutes, the program could help them recognize Jazzman from his speech habits.

The Association tended to look to Damon for magic. Well, linguistics was a kind of magic, a way to see hidden worlds.

Her next song was called Salvation. Another song which made Damon felt.

Good God, she couldn't just simply choose a song – she had to pick those songs that reminded him about falling in love. About needing someone. Why did she have to choose a song with lyrics that could portrait so well? Back in his old life, he used to love getting muddy with a multi-layered text. He had once engaged with language, heart and soul. Now he mined it for parts. Commodities. Weapons.

His family had been so proud of his career. They would be sick to see him now, hollowed out by vengeance. All the goodness gone.

Well, they weren't the ones left behind.

Ric was staring at him.

Damon forced a smile. "I can't say what I need more at this moment—to stop Jazzman from selling the TZ or to stop this woman from singing another song."

"Mmm."

"What?"

"You know you always joke when you are distressed."

"Distressed." Damon spat out the word.

Ric jotted something on the small pad. Noting the dealers' social movements. Funny how unaffected he was by the singer's web of sentimental cues and signs. Damon tried hard not to focus on her. Or on those hose, but he found them so powerfully sexy. He found her powerfully sexy. He couldn't see her face, but it didn't matter; this thing was beyond physical. He put the back of his hand to his head.

"You are coming down with something?"

"I don't know," Damon whispered.

Ric tipped up his head. "There is a hotel next door. Top two floors are where they have got the players—the 17th and 18th, and it is where everything will happen. High security, manned at all time, halls guarded at two sides. They are keeping the 16th floor vacant. Stairwell is no-go. It is going to be a bitch to get ears up there." He went on about the Mystic Palace Hotel across the street where most of the Associates were staying. It wouldn't do to have them trotting through the lobby of the hotel next door. Ric turned to him and smiled. "We could have Associates fan out and listen for people to say vim and vitriol. How about that?"

"Hah." Jazzman had used the phrase vim and vitriol several times on the conference call, his own personal variant on the idiom vim and vigour. "Not a bad thought, except I could see other dealers using it now. As a call-back, an inside joke. But did you notice the emotional charge Jazzman had around it? You heard the call—he sounded proud of switching the words."

Ric gave him a look. "I didn't think it at the time but…yes."

"It is, for want of a better word, a thing for him," Damon said. "Altering idioms. It is something he wants people to notice. My money says he alters idioms all the time. That alone won't identify Jazzman, but it's a damn fine thing to listen for."

Onto another song.

I'm dying to catch my breath

Oh why don't I ever learn?

I've lost all my trust,

Though I've surely tried to turn it around

Can you still see the heart of me?

All my agony fades away

When you hold me in your embrace

Don't tear me down for all I need

Make my heart a better place

Give me something I can believe

Don't tear me down

You've opened the door now, don't let it close

I'm here on the edge again

I wish I could let it go

I know that I'm only one step away

From turning it around

Can you still see the heart of me?

All my agony fades away

When you hold me in your embrace

Don't tear me down for all I need

Make my heart a better place

Give me something I can believe

Don't tear it down, what's left of me

Make my heart a better place

It was clear that she liked picking songs about need and emotion, Damon got that. A woman with need and emotion. It was clear that she was looking for something. He suspected that she was broken and alone, squeezed into an out-of-the-way place.

Damon had believed in need and emotion way back when he was optimistic, naïve, and vulnerable. But he was no longer that man anymore.

It was here he came up for air. How long had he been ignoring the arms dealers? He had a job to do.

He forced himself to groan. "Can this night get any more magical?" Damon knew he should shut up, but he couldn't. "Tell me she isn't here every night. Please."

Ric adjusted the cuffs of his silky shirt in a way that suggested he was holding back comment.

"What?" Damon demanded. "It is just a bit much."

"Why not ignore her like everybody else does?"

Movement up at the front tables. A man in a blue suit approached a group at the centre of the cluster. A Somali, he guessed by the way he moved his mouth and jaw as he greeted another man. Language often shaped a person's facial muscles; Damon could sometimes tell a person's nationality by how they held their lips between utterances. Could Jazzman be a Somali man? The conversation up there was really flowing, especially between songs. They would be speaking English—that would the common language.

If only he could be that potted palm.

He and Rio discussed ways to get speech samples. They could wire up some Associates and plant them at intervals across the front of the place before the show tomorrow night. A few of the female Associates could try to get themselves invited into the inner circle, which was 99% male. Associates could fan out and shadow known dealers as they went about their daily business. But they needed more than coffee orders; they needed conversations.

Once Jazzman was identified, the Association would abduct him and get him to reveal the whereabouts of the TZ prototype and blueprints. They had to identify him before he sold.

Jazzman, unfortunately, had a talent for sniffing out agents. The CIA's agent in the New Tong out of Texas had been killed. Interpol's network across the former Soviet states had frayed, the Russian Associate on the original conference call had been killed, as had their China connection. There was nobody friendly inside that auction.

It was up to Damon.

The singer was onto another song. Another song about having someone who would go through the difficult times with you, Damon thought.

You may say you're walking all by yourself

Have no one else.

Your life is deadly like a loaded gun,

And you're shaking Love.

Don't shiver,

Don't give up,

Don't quiver,

You're enough.

You will be just fine

Tonight.

Baby when it's cold outside

I will keep you warm

Save you from the storm

I will light a

Fire and the embers bright

Will guide you through the night.

When it's cold outside

I will light a fire.

(Fire)

I will light a fire.

(Fire)

I will light a fire.

(Fire)

When it's cold outside

I will light a fire.

He rubbed his eyes. "Good lord, woman, you are a believer, aren't you?"

Ric turned to him. "Believer? What do you mean?"

"There is always someone with you, no matter how sucks life is."

Ric stared at him incredulously. "I've been listening to these songs for three nights, watching the tables. They are just songs. You can't be getting all that meaning from songs."

"English Lit 101. A poem is rarely about one thing. A rose is more than a rose. A cigar is more than a cigar." Damon had always had a soft spot for the poets. Back in his life before he lost everything anyway. He took a chip and put it inside his mouth. "My guess is that she is lonely and broken, wishing she can find someone to love and somewhere she belongs to."

"Seriously?"

"Trust me. It is all in there."

"Well, if she wants to find someone, she is a fool," Ric said. "That hat. Nobody can see her face."

"I know. She may as well tack a sign on her back. I am in hiding. This is my disguise. Don't get close to me. She probably doesn't even realize it."

Ric shot him a warning look.

"Don't worry. I don't do damsels in distress."

"There is always a first time."

Damon sniffed. "Let her set herself on fire up there. I only have eyes for Jazzman."

Ric took another swallow of his beer in a no comment way.

But Ric didn't get it.

Sure, Ric understood on an intellectual level why Damon wanted to stop the auction, but he didn't understand it on a gut level. Ric didn't know what it was like to dig through piles of bodies that were no longer human. Ric couldn't know what it was like to recognize the person you loved more than anything in the world from a barrette clasped to a bloody bit of hair and scalp. Ric couldn't know the horror of grabbing somebody's hand, thinking to pull them out of the wreckage, only to come away with the hand itself, attached to nothing. Ric couldn't know that a severed hand weighs roughly the same as a tennis shoe, or what it feels like to hold such a hand while your world falls away.

Damon wished he could stop going back to that goddamn hand. The memory was surfacing too often these days. It was the situation with the TZ, bringing it all back, reminding him of that night ten years ago. The idea of innocents dying, caught in something larger. Back then he had been a mere civilian. A powerless passenger. But he could do something about this threat.

He would do anything, become anything, to stop the TZ.


	3. Chapter 3

An hour later, Ric left for a meeting across town. Damon stayed to finish charting the dealer movements.

Her show ended a bit after eleven.

The crowd began to disperse soon after. He took the opportunity to wander around, catching fragments of language in the air like a hound dog on a scent. He followed a pair of Moroccans and a German through grand brass and wood doors and on into the elegant hotel next door. The hotel belonged to the Mikaelson family – the most powerful family in Mystic Falls. The family owned the Grill as well and there was a hallway that led directly to the lobby. He trailed them loosely across the gleaming, pink marble floor under a dark wood ceiling studded with tiny lights like stars in the night sky. Ornate brass banisters marked wide, rose-carpeted staircases up to the reception areas, but the dealers went to the gift area and fell to examining postcards on a spinning rack. Silently. Then, when the conversation started back up, it was Spanish. He needed to hear Jazzman speaking English. That would happen in more widely mixed groups.

He wandered back to the Grill. The tables stood mostly empty now except for a few couples in the back and an old man off to the side, puffing on a last cigarette.

And there she was, talking and laughing with a pair of young blond men near the potted palm. She had pulled the face-concealing net up over the top of the hat to reveal almond-coloured eyes that looked bright under lavishly dark lashes and brows. And her smile had just a bit of the devil in it.

And she took his breath away.

One of the young men said something to her and she laughed out loud. Clearly, she had enjoyed his conversation and company.

The other young man fussed with a leaf on the potted palm. He began to unwrap a wire from its trunk. A wire. A microphone. Connected to a laptop.

Damon's pulse pounded.

They had been recording the music! A recording device in the potted palm.

Could it be so easy?

He settled down at a nearby table and pretended to focus on his smartphone. Between the recording and the charting, he would be able to get a speech sample from nearly every dealer who had been out there. He would be able to rule them out. Or rule one of them in. He would know if Jazzman had been out there.

He would follow that recording.

The friends left. The woman stayed, zipping the equipment into bags and cases.

She would take it home.

Well then, she had to take Damon home, too.

His eyes fell to her crazy sexy panty hose. The prospect of seducing her filled him with excitement, guilt, delight, dread, and lots of emotions he couldn't name. Since when could he not name something? It was this fierce sense of push and pull he felt with her—it had him all turned around. Or maybe it was the fever.

He would do what it took to get alone with her computer. He could copy her entire hard drive in a matter of minutes and she would never know. He had seduced dozens of women to get access to secrets. She was just another.

He thought of her up there alone, singing in the background every night being completely ignored by the audience. She had something to say and nobody heard; he found himself annoyed on her behalf on top of everything else.

He needed to disengage. This was about the TZ. He would be the most despicable gutter dog if it meant getting his hands on the TZ.

He would charm her and steal from her. End of story.

In his mind, he went back over her songs, flipping through them like a Rolodex of her heart. She had revealed so much; she would be easy to seduce.

Seduction had never been difficult for Damon. Especially a woman like her who was in need of having someone to care about her.

Oh, yes, he would seduce her to get what he wanted. He pushed away a pang of guilt about that. He shouldn't feel guilty. He had a mission to complete. This was a task he had to complete. Period.

This woman loved singing – that would be another way in. Rose loved music and had been playing the piano since she was a child. He had spent enough time with Rose to understand about music. He could talk Broadway musicals. You couldn't find this stuff in Mystic Falls. She would go crazy.

But seducing a singer wasn't all about lofty ideas and starry nights—that would be the mistake most men would make with her. No song worth her salt didn't love carnality. A bit of dirt and teeth.

Damon was impressing even himself now. It was as if he had a direct line to her.

He stilled when he realized why: this woman was the kind of girl he would have picked out in his pre-spy days, back when he lived in New York, just like where Dr Joseph Silas would live. She was his type. Definitely his type.

Damon's throat felt thick.

Sure, during the last ten years he had played Dr Joseph Silas in and out of lecture halls. He had played Joseph Silas the author. But never once had he played Joseph Silas the man. Not since that night on the train.

He sucked in a breath. He would do what it took. He would court her as Joseph, get her to take him back to her room. He would take her to bed if he had to. He would use every tool in his arsenal to get the TZ under his control. Sex was nothing but a highly useful tool. He himself was nothing but a highly useful tool, a means to an end.

He needed to keep his feelings out of it.

He looked down and flexed his fingers. He could still feel the hand in his palm. The weight of a tennis shoe. The hand, connected to nothing, to nobody. The memory crept over the edges of his mind.

Damon shut his eyes, fighting the undertow.

x x x

Elena had watched him all night, way in the back in the dark. She had told the waiter to light his candle, just so she could get a better look at him, but he and his friend didn't want it lit. Still, the torches had lit him enough.

He put away his phone and looked at his hand, moving it just slightly. Was something wrong with his hand?

He wasn't one of the conventioneers, she would know that right off. The conventioneers were all dense and dark and grunty, and he was bright. Shiny in a way she couldn't explain. It wasn't his hair was shiny, it was the feel of him. He sat quietly in his chair during the show, focusing hard on the audience—anywhere but her. Sometimes he had leaned forward with something apparently important to say to his friend. He had a light complexion with olive undertones and had a strong bone structure with high cheeks bones and a solid jaw line. His dark brown almost black hair hung just over his ears, styled in a casual disarray. He wore a light linen sports coat, sort of a tropical colonial deal. Best of all, he wore a T-shirt underneath his white buttoned-down shirt. She liked a man who wore a T-shirt under his button shirt, even in the heat. It showed a certain decorum.

He was so cool, so dapper, so together, she just wanted to kiss him and mess up that hair. She imagined him dishevelled, wet with sweat. Hair hanging over her face. Brushing against her cheeks. Back and forth…

Furthermore, she had spent two whole songs wondering what colour his eyes were—maybe grey, blue, hazel. But she was sure his eyes must be mesmerizing. That was one good thing about the net hat; she could brazenly stare at people and they never knew.

She wound the cable around her elbow, thinking about putting the net back down so she could stare at him some more. He was much larger than she had thought. He was also hard and lean and strongly, smoothly muscled. He had come off a bit studious back there, but up close he looked so solid and fit in the way he filled out that jacket that she revised her thinking. Maybe he was studious, but he was also an athlete—a boxer. A scholar and a boxer.

Hellbuckets, that was hot.

Then, as if he felt her watching, he looked up. Smiled.

Her heart just about sprung out of her chest. She smiled back. Nodded. "Hey," she said, and went back to her cord-winding.

He got up.

Oh, God, he was coming near. It was one thing to muse about men; it was another thing to engage with them. She still didn't much trust men.

He came to a halt in front of her. "Need any help with that? Are you carrying all this alone?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"It is the least I could do," he said. "Your singing…quite moving."

Big, fat liar, she thought to herself. He was just a guy hitting on her. Telling her what he thought she would like to hear. Pretending like he had listened. He had been watching the audience and talking with his friend all night. Still, she was polite. "Well, thanks."

"You don't believe me?"

"No, I appreciate it," she said.

"Meaning no, you don't believe me, but you appreciate my bullshitting about it?"

Elena stopped her winding and smiled. "Yeah, I suppose that is what I mean."

He tilted his head, looked into her eyes.

And she forgot to breathe. She had her answer. Blue—his eyes were blue with grey shards and a pale line around the iris, as if to emphasize their blueness. But blue was just a colour; the word did nothing to suggest content: humour. Intelligence. Sparkle shot through with challenge. Those eyes held both a razor-sharp intelligence and a simmering passion that was never far below the surface. Intelligence and passion could be a volatile combination in a man, a lethal combination. Fury, arrogance and sheer masculine stubbornness were all forces that could be honed to fine degrees by such a mixture. So, too, could sensuality, loyalty, and protectiveness. He had a look that said, I have something wonderful for you.

"I meant exactly that," he said. "Moving."

"Okay," she said.

"Though I have to say, that song—All I Need?"

She kept winding. That song described her feelings very well. It was Elena's favourite song. It was about a broken-hearted woman hoping to have someone who could make her love again and trust again. It was not easy to trust men again after what had happened to her. Caroline had always insisted that she should move on and open her heart. Easy said than done, Elena thought.

She sort of wished this guy wouldn't talk about her songs, because he hadn't been listening.

"You left out the best one," he said. "I was curious why."

"The best one what?" she asked.

"The best forgotten broken heart."

Her heart skipped a beat. He had gotten it. She looked up. "Well, aren't you observant."

He crossed his arms, half-sitting and half-leaning on a table top, so calm and confident. Like his posture alone was reply enough.

Did he know the song was kind of about her? She felt exposed, suddenly, at the thought that he might. Even she hadn't realized it when she had decided to sing it tonight. "I'm sure there are a lot of broken hearts I missed."

"Have you thought about fixing it?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Fixing a broken heart is a song. Am I supposed to laugh at your joke?"

"Oh, right." He didn't smile as he said it. "Maybe it is not always about trying to fix something that is broken."

"Then what is it?"

"Maybe it is about starting over and creating something better." His eyes locked with her. "One day someone is going to hug you so tight, that all of your broken pieces will stick back together."

Her heart pounded. She felt held…invaded…ravished by how much he had heard. As if she had been undressing in front of a mirror, only to learn it was a two-way mirror, and he had been on the other side, enjoying her. She almost couldn't believe he was real.

He smiled lazily. "You played your guitar very well tonight."

"You know about guitars?" Funny, Elena thought he was just hitting on her. Like he took her songs really seriously. "Do you know how to play?"

He shrugged casually. "I learnt a few tricks here and there when I was younger."

One dark brow lifted in disbelief as her gaze moved over the perfection of his feature. "I find that hard to believe," she said finally.

"I promise you, it is true," he averred.

She felt like bursting into laughter. It was as if she had put a message into a bottle and cast it into the ocean, thinking that was the end of the conversation.

"You still don't believe me, do you?"

Elena lifted a shoulder. "Well…"

And then he put out his hand, strong and golden like him. "Fifty bucks."

"What for?"

"A bet."

She could touch him now. She very much wanted to touch him. It was the craziest thing.

His lips formed a hint of a smile and he watched her with those blue-grey eyes so full of knowing and humour; the way he looked at her, it made her feel special. It made her feel seen. "Are you frightened, princess?"

Heat rushed to her face.

He called her princess. She fought to keep her expression neutral. Nobody had ever called her a princess. It was sexy and scary, and she wanted him to say more things like that to her, and suddenly she felt less lost, less walled in.

Less alone.

And suddenly she was putting out her hand. "An easy fifty bucks."

He took it and squeezed. A shiver of excitement flowed clear through her.

"Prove to me you know how to play the guitar," she said. "Play me a tune."

He let her hand go with a nod. "I understand."

Elena passed him the guitar and he gladly took it.

"What's your name?" he asked.

She hesitated. "Elena."

He smiled. "Nice."

Twinges curled through her belly. Did he think her name was nice?" She swallowed. "What's yours?"

He hesitated for an unbearable moment, and then a smile dawned across his perfect features. "I'm Damon," he said as he tuned a string, strummed.

Elena watched Damon intensely as he played the guitar. She recognised the rhythm of the song he was playing immediately. It was Now and Forever. It was the first song she had learnt to play with her guitar when her parents bought the guitar for her on her birthday. She gazed, fascinated at his fingers touching the strings. Then he stopped.

"Why did you stop playing?" Elena asked quietly.

Damon passed the guitar back to her. "That is all I know."

"Oh."

"You win. You can have the fifty bucks."

"No, you win," she pointed out. "You did play me a tune."

Damon looked at her, a wry smile twisting his lips. "I'm in the mood to celebrate. I will buy you a drink."

"Buy me a drink? Like right now?"

He tilted his head, all playful confidence, and something in her longed to take up his offer. She didn't know the first thing about him, but he got the dragon thing. He'd connected. It made him feel familiar from the inside out. You didn't need a man's name when you had a feel for the inside of him.

He said, "This is the best offer you can have all day."

"You are so full of it." Elena smiled, full of such a crazy, good feeling. Maybe she could trust this good feeling. And what the hell, it was not a big deal to have a drink. She would bring her Ruger. She would be less noticeable with this guy alongside.

She narrowed her eyes. "Fine."

"We will go to the hotel next door. There is a bar in the lobby. I will carry your things—they look heavy."

Elena slid her gaze over to see Conor, who was watching her from behind the bar. Crap. "Let me put it in my room."

"You stay here? At the Grill?" He sounded surprised.

"No," she said. "I have a room at the hotel next door." Klaus had given her a room in the hotel just in case she couldn't live in her house. "For practise," she lied as she noticed Damon was looking at her curiously.

He took hold of her computer bag. "May I help?"

"No, please." Elena took it from him. "Why don't we go somewhere else? I know there is a place which serves great kebab and it should still be opened. Meet me out in front in five minutes. Outside the doors." Her stuff felt light as she picked it up. She felt light. He seemed to not want her to go.

"Five minutes." With that she walked off.

Finn Mikaelson, the most rational of the Mikaelson brothers, had joined Conor by the bar. Elena walked over and smile at them, "Hello Finn. Did Caroline mention about finding another job for me?" she asked Finn. "I need more cash. I know you have a lot on your plate, but I'm feeling like it is reckless that I don't have enough. I should be prepared for anything, you know?"

"Extra job! How could I forget about it?" Finn apologized. "Caroline and you did mention about it."

Yes, she had. The Mikaelson brothers were usually more up on things. "My job here only starts at eight. I'm happy to work during the day. That will work, right?"

Finn nodded. "No problem."

"I just want to say, I'm happy to find my job if you are too busy…"

"No. You work for us," Finn said.

Conor flicked an ash off his cigarette. "You should not be separated from the herd," he said. "It is what John would like. He would like you to leave our fortress of safety."

"I agree," she said. "But you always want to keep all your doors open."

"You do." Finn shot a glance at Conor. "I apologize. I will talk to someone tomorrow."

"Thank you," Elena said.

Conor frowned, offended. He was always offended, always ready to fight somebody.

"It will require a few days," Finn said. "I will let you know after the weekend."

"Thanks," she said.

"Who was that?" Finn nodded his head where Damon had stood.

"Just an audience guy." Elena smiled brightly. "Thank you. Good night."

x x x

Atticus Shane (aka Shame) sat at the far end of the lobby of the Mystic Grill Hotel noodling on his phone, adjusting the cotton in his cheek with his tongue. The cotton helped create the late-middle-aged Indian executive look he favoured on jobs like this. Late-middle-aged was key. People underestimated how age let you fly under the radar.

He liked this seat, right at the edge of a cluster, turned just so; it allowed him to see the elevators, the desk, and the only way into the building from the outside courtyard.

The show had ended and the Grill was closing down. The patrons were returning. Some of them headed up to their rooms, others up the stairs to the lounge. The place had been made over with spare surfaces of dark woods and bold colours, but some decorator had ruined it with a profusion of brass ornamentation—bannisters, planters, mirrors. Not a good look. But he wasn't there for the décor.

He was there to identify and kill Damon Salvatore.

The Association knew about the auction. They would be desperate to get their hands on Jazzman and his weapon. Which meant they would have to send Salvatore, the invisible hunter. They always seemed to send Salvatore around when they needed intelligence, details, more. You never knew Salvatore was there until well after the shit hit the fan and by then he was gone.

Nobody knew what Damon Salvatore looked like or how he tracked his targets. There was a rumour he was some type of psychic, or even a remote viewer. That would be bullshit, of course, but it made for a good story and it gave the newbies a certain thrill.

Well, not just newbies. Over the years, Shane had seen numerous cartels, factions, and crime families get whipped up into a paranoid frenzy about the Association, and Salvatore in particular.

Shane wasn't surprised by how difficult it was to find the man. He was far more surprised nobody had tried to have the man killed before now.

He spotted people he knew from the Somali contingency, and the German group, too, but they didn't recognize him. Earlier, he spotted the man who had taken out the contract on Salvatore—a Russian in a Greek fisherman's hat. They had never met, but Shane always vetted his employers.

People like his Russian employer feared the Association because they didn't understand the Association. Most criminal organizations were in it for the money and power. So were government agencies, when you got right down to it.

But not the Association.

As far as Shane could tell, the Association had to be bleeding money, and they didn't have power, or at least not the kind you could wield. Sometimes they seemed to be working for themselves. Other times they appeared to freelance for various governments—usually Western governments, although not always. They were clearly picky, and when you put together all the operations the ha'd gotten involved in, and looked at what side they got in on, you could see a hero complex in operation. They would be solidly on the "stop the auction side" of this affair.

Which meant Salvatore was here. Hunting. He made a note of an Aussie roughneck type tracking Thorne, the Hangman lieutenant. People looked at Thorne as a dangerous thug, but Shane had seen Thorne be very shrewd.

The Chinese man in the corner seemed overly observant. A man had been at the postcard rack near the Germans and the Moroccans; the man felt wrong somehow, but he didn't look around once. Not a hunter.

Shane was a journalist by training; he could research a mark better than any hitter out there. He wished he could talk about his data mining techniques, but he didn't want his rivals to copy him.

Salvatore didn't exist ten years ago—that was one known fact. Nobody knew anything about Salvatore. Which meant something had happened ten years ago to push Salvatore into the Association, or to alert the Association to his existence.

Possibly both.

Shane had run through the obvious databases and archives, going at reports of brawls, arrests, and tragedies from different angles. He was running through the more obscure databases and archives now, paying special attention to suppressed information.

He was getting some interesting flags.

Shane's clients all believed he was in the assassination business, but really, he was in the research business. That was what made him the best. That was how he would find and kill Salvatore.


	4. Chapter 4

Up in her room, Elena splashed water on her face, not sure if she should trust the hopeful, happy feeing she had. One guy connected with her songs and she was ready to give up her firstborn.

She brushed her teeth.

Back in Richmond, back when she was still in school, she and her girlfriends would describe their future husbands. Her girlfriends wanted their future husbands to have mansions and convertibles, but what Elena wanted was connection. She wanted to be with a man so completely that she could say one word and he would understand everything she meant in it—the references, the echoes, the degree of jokiness, the colour, the angle. And then he would say a word in reply, and they would share their worlds so completely that those two words would be a conversation.

She had never had anything close to that—not with anybody except her brother at times, but that was different. And as wonderful as Caroline was, as close as they were, they didn't really get each other. Being on the run, she felt more distant from people than ever, like she was all alone, walking on the moon.

And suddenly this guy. Another moonwalker, traipsing along beside her.

Elena brushed her hair and put on a black felt hat with a small brim—a good night-time hat. It didn't have a net, but it was pretty, and it really changed her look when she pulled it down over her forehead. She looked good and she knew he would be impressed.

She put on some lipstick and paused. The hopeful, happy feeling scared her a little. She had sometimes felt like, getting out of Richmond, she had tried to take too much—like a jack-in-the-box popped up too high, and she'd spent the following years getting violently stuffed back down by John. And now, this feeling of hope made her feel dangerously popped up. Like maybe it was safer to stay inside her little box. Like hope and happiness were for other people.

She shoved the cap back on her lipstick. It was just a drink and kebab. And it was her birthday, dammit.

And she wanted to touch him again. Because he was beautiful and magnetic.

She locked her door and headed out the side way. The Mikaelson would frown on an excursion like this. Caroline would probably freak out if she knew about it. Elena had decided to keep this to herself. She wouldn't tell anyone about tonight.

She dated now and then, mostly emo travellers, like the German boy who wanted to look at the stars. Or Liam, the American singer, all sweetness and pop hooks. Like her they had been in their late twenties, but she thought of them as boys because they were pretty and sweet, and the opposite of John. Even John's face was hard, with sharp cheekbones, as if his hate was trying to bust out of his brain.

In both cases, the boys had up and left town after a few dates. It was probably for the best—any guy she was running with would be in big trouble if one of John's thugs showed up. But they were both so lovely and she had enjoyed having sex with them, even if she didn't ever orgasm during sex. John had always said it showed she was frigid. Well, with John it wasn't so much a frigidity problem as a being-living-with-a-frightening-and-narcissistic-psychopath problem.

She was shy, that was all, and she had great orgasms on her own. And as she got time and distance away from John, the idea of sex was way more exciting. These days she was a very sexual person—at least in her mind. She was even a little kinky…in her mind. Or did that not count? Was being a little bit kinky in your mind like being a good gymnast in your mind?

Elena slipped down the stairwell and out the side into the hot, moist, summer night, heading down the walk and around the corner to the town centre where four lanes of traffic buzzed up and down like crazy, even at this time of night.

Across the way, a shop girl swept the neon-lit entrance of the 24-hour donut shop, but most of the other shops up and down the street were gated now. Apartments and office buildings soared up into the sky, topped by colourful, constantly changing signs. You saw a lot of this mix of colour and concrete grubbiness in Mystic Falls. Decrepitude and wealth at vivid angles with each other, like shards from different mirrors.

Then she caught sight of him and a smile spread across her face all on its own.

Hopeful.

Stupid.

On Elena went. Damon stood to the side of the entrance. There was a Camaro parked along the road. This man, taking her for a drink and kebab. She pressed her fingers against the outside of her shoulder bag, locating the handle of her gun. Let one of John's guys show up. She would protect the both of them. The stupid hope was making her feel brave.

He looked so handsome in his linen suit, like a character out of a romance novel, and he glanced down at her legs with a shadow of a smile that made her belly flip flop. Did he like the panty hose? Or maybe he was not a fans of panty hose like John did.

Damon looked up at her and her heart sped. He watched her approach with a glimmer of a smile that was like a cord to her belly, pulling her, enchanting her. He extended his hand as she neared.

She took it. Shivers played up and down her arm as he closed his fingers around hers.

"The hat looks nice on you," he observed as he opened the passenger's door.

Elena smiled. "Thank you."

He helped her in and let her have her hand back before he slid into the driver's side.

"Tell me where are we going," he said.

"The shop is just around the corner."

"Sure."

"Do you like kebab?" she asked, realising that she knew nothing about him. "There is a burger shop if you don't like kebab."

"I love kebab."

"Well, isn't that wonderful." She sat back, enjoying his easy presence. "Business or pleasure, Damon?" She asked it half ironically, because she had never seen him before in Mystic Falls.

His gaze was full of humour, as though he got exactly how she meant it. Business or pleasure. A thrill shot through her.

Business, as it turned out. He was teaching linguistics at the University. Not a professor, just an adjunct, there for the quarter. A subject matter expert, he called himself. The way he said it, she got that it was a buzzword, and that he didn't quite like it.

"Subject matter expert," Elena said, rolling it around for herself.

"S. M. E. for short."

"But never a smee, I hope."

Damon gave her a sly look. Lordy, his charm could light a burnt-out bulb. "Smee? Don't even utter it. That's how words like that start."

Elena smiled innocently, thinking she might have to call him a smee later on. She was having fun already.

They sped down bright streets full of colourful signs and lights under thick, black power lines strung back and forth like ropy garlands for a strange kind of holiday, or the webs of power line spiders trying to trap the whole damn city.

She rambled on about her work at the Grill, carefully avoiding the whole being-on-the-run business, as they drew near the chaotic night bazaar. He pulled the Camaro to a halt along the street and they got out.

"Do you come here often?" Damon glanced around.

"A friend of mine brought me here a few times. The kebab is really delicious," Elena said as she walked inside the shop.

Inside, the shop had been converted into a dimly lit, charming restaurant, with dark oaken floors, tables polished to a glossy shine and copper pots and pans hanging artistically on the rough brick walls. Neon lights outside illuminated the stained glass windows, and red-and-white checked tablecloths added to the warmth and charm.

A waiter stationed near the door greeted Elena with a polite, "Welcome," then showed them to an empty table at one corner. As Damon pulled out a chair for Elena, he glanced around at the place. Only two tables were occupied. Two men were sitting in the central of the place. A woman and a man who appeared to be lovers occupied another table at another corner.

An older waitress appeared at their table, greeted Elena with an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Good to see you again, my friend."

"Nice to see you too, Bree," Elena said as she took the huge, leather-bound menus.

"You want to try our Greek lamb kebabs with yoghurt and lemon mint sauce?" Bree said with a wink. "It is delicious."

Elena looked at Damon. "Please have whatever you like," she insisted graciously. "I'm buying."

"I will have whatever you are having," Damon said as he passed the menu back to Bree. "I'm celebrating. That's why I'm buying."

Elena frowned. A man paying for things and making decisions for her was a little too John-ish. "You have decided to change our plan? Just like that?"

He smiled. "You can buy me a drink next time."

"Next time?"

"You are going to see me again."

Elena snorted as she took a sip of the water in her glass "So sure I'm going to see you again?"

"Yes," he said.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because you find me irresistible."

"Irresistible." She felt her face heat as she said it.

And when Damon glanced at her again, she knew he had caught it, like they were connected. Two travellers on the moon.

And then he said, "I'm buying tonight. This. For you."

"You don't have to. I lost the bet."

"You are right. I'm about to take your money. But buy me a drink next time. I insist."

A smile lit Elena's face. "I will say yes. But only because it is my birthday."

A cloud seemed to pass over his eyes.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing." Damon pasted on a smile. "Happy birthday."

"You think it is pathetic," Elena guessed. "Here with a stranger on my birthday."

"Not at all," he said softly.

Elena lifted her glass in a toast. "Thank you." Maybe she could trust him. The idea of trusting him felt like a flower in her heart.

Damon smiled. "My pleasure."

x x x

Damon touched the small of her back as they made their way along the street. The touch felt proprietary. She liked it.

"What do you think about the kebab?" she asked. "Do you like it?"

"It is delicious."

Elena smiled. "I like strolling around town at this hour. It is not so busy and crowded but there are still people around."

"Aren't you afraid?"

She nodded. "I do. That's why I don't do it often. Tonight is an exception."

"Because I'm here as your bodyguard?"

An irrepressible smile lit Elena's vivid face. "Oh, I like the idea of having a bodyguard." _Especially if you are the bodyguard_ , she thought.

Damon winked at her. "This bodyguard is very expensive. I hope you can afford to pay me."

Elena laughed. "Any discount?"

Damon chuckled. "Maybe."

They walked in silence for a brief moment before Elena spoke again. "You know a lot about music. Where do you learn them from?"

"University colleague. We are all very eggheady over there."

Right. To her, eggheady meant somebody with an overdeveloped brain and a weak body, liable to crack and break. Too many thoughts. Damon wasn't that. He was an academic, sure…like Indiana Jones was an academic. Like an adventurer academic.

"I thought you were linguistics," she said.

"You don't get to linguistics by way of math. You get there through language. Some people get there through poetry."

"Like you?"

He scanned the area, ignoring her question. He seemed to be always on alert, this guy. Had he sensed somebody watching them? He pointed to a line of shops that stretched up to the right. "This way."

"Not answering the question?"

"No, I'm never a fan of Q&A." His gaze sent a bolt through her. "I don't think you are, too."

She looked at him, amused. "How do you know I don't like Q&A?"

"I do," he said simply.

Her belly tightened. He seemed to know her well.

"Where to?"

"A mission," he said. "We have a mission to complete."

"What mission?"

"Stroll down the streets before we get back to the car. "

Oh. Complete the mission. Get on with it. Elena felt a pang of disappointment, because she wanted this birthday to last. He made her feel big and bold, like her old self. She was tired of being small.

After she found a sturdy travel backpack she insisted they stop at a booth full of strange little wind-up toys. She wound one up and watched him track its movements. She decided that the lovely icy lustre in his gaze came from his eyes being—okay, gorgeous—but also from being curious.

After that, Elena insisted they buy ices and eat them at the little patch of tables at the lit edge of the bazaar. She got lime and he got kiwi, but then they tasted each other's and traded.

His was tastier, and also, it was his. "I would have never gotten kiwi," she said. "Who the hell gets kiwi?"

Damon turned to her slowly, gravely, as if in warning, and she laughed. And right there, the moment expanded. It gave her shivers to feel it, like a song changing key or deepening in an unexpected way. Or the world getting bigger and taking on magic.

A fellow traveller on the moon.

Suddenly Elena wanted to tell him everything about herself. Not hide anything. "You never asked me the question," she said. "Business or pleasure."

"Do you want me to?"

"I'm here for neither," she said. "I just thought you should know. I'm hiding out from a crazy step uncle and his guys. They are a pretty bad bunch. I just thought you should know. Two years I have been fine. I'm not saying we are in danger—"

"Don't worry about that," Damon said, forehead furrowed. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

"Oh, I have got lots of help. More help than I need. Just thought I would tell you."

"I'm sorry," he said. She could feel the sorry in him. He meant it.

"Thanks."

"What happened? You don't have to tell if you don't want, but…"

"No," she said. She wanted to tell him. She had always been one to bare herself. "My parents died in a car crash when I was 17. My father's stepbrother became the legal guardian."

"What happened?"

"My brother and I were too young. And he came in, all charm and polish and money." Elena licked her ice. "I guess I felt like we were lucky to have him around. It felt good."

"Heady, for an 17-year-old girl."

She loved the quality of his attention, as if he listened with his whole being. "Yup. John seemed wonderful. It was nice at first, everything so lovely. But he became more controlling as days went by."

Damon's lips quirked. "That didn't go so well, did it? The control."

"Hell, no." She smiled. "It sure didn't go well, believe me." She picked at the hem of her dress. "But I didn't want him to hurt my brother. Life went way easier when I bent. Like a coward."

He gaze darkened. "You are no coward."

"I felt like a coward. The first five years, it wasn't bad. But then he started to become more demanding and more difficult to deal with. I had no choice but to do something about it."

A dangerous glint appeared in his eyes. "And you are okay now?"

"Only because he is doing a 10-20 year bid in the prison." Thanks to evidence she had collected. "Prison only made him madder and meaner."

Damon asked a lot of questions—he seemed really to want to know about her plight. She found herself telling him about the scary messages John would send from inside. You are mine. Only mine. She had moved deep into the panhandle, staying with distant cousins, but John's men found her all the same and tried to bring her to him—in prison—and it was only luck that she slipped away. She told him about all the woman-on-the-run tricks she developed. She fled to D.C. and they found her again. She told him how she finally travelled to Mystic Falls with the help of a dear friend.

"That is not the story of a coward," Damon said. "It is the story of a fighter."

Elena looked up at him. She could tell he had something more to say. "What?"

"The hat…I can't say the hat is the best disguise ever."

She frowned. "It is a great disguise."

"No," he said simply. "It is not."

"Is the linguist suddenly an expert on disguises?"

"It is obviously a disguise. You need to deal with the problem, not hide it. Hiding invites speculation."

"Trust me, it is under control," she said. "At the moment."

"Elena…"

"You are just very perceptive. Hey, it has worked for two years, hasn't it?"

And bottom line, the Mikaelson brothers would have said something if they thought the disguise was bad. Who better to know disguises than shady characters like the Mikaelson brothers? Not that she said that to Damon.

Something changed in him then—he seemed almost to disengage. He took her paper cone from her fingers and tossed it in the trash bin with a charming smile. "Come on, then. Let's walk down the street."

The mission. Back to the mission.

On they went, Damon was still very aware of their surroundings; she might not have noticed if she wasn't the same way. Elena might not have noticed their circuitous route, either, if she didn't take those, too. Maybe not wanting to meet up with John's thugs. That wouldn't turn out well.

He stopped at the opening to an alley that dead-ended at a cement wall covered in graffiti. "Can you see it?"

"No," she said. 'What are you looking at?"

Damon pointed at a convex mirror mounted high on the side of a building. And there it was, a dragon, reflected in the mirror. Which would mean it was behind the wall at the end. Visible from the street.

"A dragon," she whispered.

"I found this when I came to Mystic Falls."

"I want to see it," Elena said. "Up close."

Damon hesitated. "Okay." He led her in and pulled up a cement block.

Elena eyed the wall. "Yeah, that might work for somebody who is tall." Like him.

"Get up there and grab the top. I will lift you."

Elena hesitated only a moment. Then she looped her purse over her neck and shoulder and stepped up. She felt his solid body draw close, felt strong hands grab her waist. Damon lifted her easily and she scrambled up to the top.

And there it was, a plaster dragon the size of a small car, fierce and wild and colourful. He hoisted himself up and sat next to her.

"I love how he is guarding the building behind him. Loyally guarding the area," she said.

Damon looked at her strangely. "Yes," he said simply.

Elena snapped a photo. There was a misshapen block of concrete next to the dragon's crumbly shoulder. Like a tilted table for the dragon. Scrub trees peeked out from behind discarded doors leaning on the far wall. Somebody had gone to town with spray paint, but they had left the dragon. "Can we go in?"

"There are spiders in the rocks," Damon said. "You don't have the best leg covering."

So he had gone in himself once before. Damon. So damn mysterious. "I will stick to the clear parts." She swung a leg over and hopped down.

He dropped down right behind her, alighting with muscular grace in his crisp tropical suit. No, not an egghead at all.

"What do you think he was for?" she asked.

"I think a restaurant was here," he said. "I suppose they hauled off the big stuff." Then his eyes met her. "You have been here for two years. You should know more about this town."

Elena shrugged. "Not really."

Reverently, she approached the dragon, so wide and thick, with a body that seemed to curve in and out of the earth, as though the earth was nothing but water. His wide mouth was open in a silent battle cry.

"So amazing. And just hidden here. Nobody knows."

"I'm sure the neighbourhood people know," he said, somewhat remotely, like he was holding himself off from her.

You could see there had been colourful scales all over the dragon's back, but now it was bits of colour broken up by dirty grey patches where the plaster showed through.

She turned and caught him looking at her intensely. "How did you find him?"

"Observant." Damon strolled up to the beast, like he wanted to get away from her. Maybe avoid the question. Even the way he had said the word—observant—it was designed to end the conversation.

But words and images were her domain. The secret little flourishes at the margins of life. Why did he explore like that? "Looking over walls, it is more than observant."

"Why should looking over a wall be unusual?" he asked. "Is it because of the information age? We are only supposed to accept the presented surface now?"

Elena smiled. It was a tasty tidbit he had thrown out. But she wasn't biting. "Accept only the presented surface?" she asked. "Like you want me to do with you?"

Damon turned to her with that strange light back in his eyes. The linguist was used to running circles around people with language. He wasn't used to being busted.

"Presented surface," she said. "That is a whole lot of non-answer. I would expect a smee such as yourself to do so much better."

"Did you just call me smee?"

"Why won't you tell me? What aren't you saying?"

Damon came to her. "Did you just call me smee?"

"I certainly did," she whispered, enjoying the heat of him up close.

"Words like that spread, you know."

She gave him a level look. "Report me to the sheriff."

He smiled, seeming to forget himself.

Her heart banged in her chest. "So secretive," she said. "With the walls and the dragons."

"Hmm."

"Tell me," she said.

"Tell you what?"

"Why you didn't stop with simply spotting the dragon. You came over the wall."

"What makes you think there is something to tell?"

Elena cocked her head. This guy was like a fortress, and if there was one thing she didn't like, it was fortresses around people. Did he let anybody in? "Isn't there?"

She saw the moment he decided to tell. Or decided the truth wasn't important enough to conceal. "It is nothing, really," he said. "Poking around in a new place is habitual. Because when I was young my family moved all over the world—25 countries in 18 years." Damon turned and picked a rock up off the ground. When he flipped it over she saw it was a divot from the dragon's back. He went over and fit it back into place. "I started this habit of seeking out three secret wonders, I suppose you would call them, in every new city. Three hidden things to make my own. It made me feel less alone."

Elena felt a rush of triumph. "And you still do it. To feel less alone."

Damon seemed to weigh his words. "It is only force of habit now," he said.

Like hell, Elena thought. He was still a stranger. Still seeking connection. "More than force of habit got you over this wall."

His blue-grey gaze felt heavy in her body. "Is that so?"

"I think you got some slabs of stone of your own you are guarding," she said.

Damon came to her and touched her cheek. It was just a fingertip, but it felt electric. "Clever Miss Callback." He had seemed remote before, but now he was very much with her, breath warm on her nose. He slid the finger on down her cheek.

Wild heat bloomed through her. "What made you climb over?"

"I'm not telling," he said.

"I want to know."

Damon held her with that heavy gaze, turning his attention slowly to her lips, which caused her belly to do a flip-flop. He would kiss her, and he meant her to know it, but it still came as a surprise, the way he slid his hands along her cheeks, coming to a stop at the back of her head. He pulled her to him, crushing his mouth over hers. The rough, confident strength of his kiss made Elena feel so warm, like heated honey.

"I want to know where your other places are," Elena said into the kiss. But more, she wanted to know him. Hell, she just wanted him.

"I have something better." Damon yanked off her hat, seeming to forget his program of leaving this place.

"Something better to show me?" she asked, voice husky. Her voice was actually husky. She put her hand on his chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall of his breath. Cool Damon being not so cool. She liked this Damon. Maybe she would get that hair dishevelled, too, now.

"Yes, but not like that."

"You have something to show me, but not like that?" Elena teased, like her heart wasn't jackhammering. "You would—"

Damon kissed her again before she could finish the question, roughly, all whiskers and heat and invading tongue. Like a gate opened. Strong hands gripped her waist, fitting her crassly and perfectly against him. The kiss felt wild. Disordered. Elena reached up and untucked his hair, mashing her fingers through it as he walked her back to the chunk of stone. The dragon's table.

She hit it with her ass, but he kept going, pressing into the V of her legs. It was all Elena could think of now. She wanted him with a mad, mad fever.

"Yes," she said, pulling him closer.

Damon kissed down her neck and she melted a little bit more. Warm hands slid up the backs of her thighs, up over her panties, taking the dress up and lodging it at her waist. He lifted her onto the rough stone surface and set her there. She would get imprints on her thighs, and she was very okay with it.

"What are you going to show me, then?"

He rested his hands on either side of her thighs. "A favourite place on you."

Elena swallowed. "Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah."

Her heart banged inside her chest. "That is what you are going to show me? Your favourite place on me?" She narrowed her eyes. "Is this going to be the cheesiest thing ever?"

"No," Damon breathed.

"Cheesy never seems cheesy to the cheeser," she said.

"Is that an ancient saying that you have learned during your stay in Mystic Falls?" Damon rested his hands heavily on her thighs and slid them down to her knees. His gentle touch contrasted with the rough stone beneath her.

"Maybe," Elena whispered. She couldn't think properly now.

He knelt down and kissed her knee, and then he looked up with that pale blue gaze. "I'm going to show you now. Unless you stop me."

Unless you stop me. She wanted him. She would never stop him. Elena shoved her hands into his hair. "I won't stop you."

He kissed her thigh.

Elena groaned and tightened her fists in his hair.

Damon looked up, gaze dark.

"Oh, sorry." She loosened her grip.

"No, go ahead, keep hold of my hair. You might want something to hang on to."

Wild energy shot through her. Again Damon kissed the tender inside of her thigh. Elena imagined his tongue, warm and wicked between her legs. It was a little obvious for her pussy to be his favourite place on her. But when he kissed her again, rough lips on sensitive skin, she decided it was okay for him to be obvious. More than okay. Go there, she thought. Be obvious. Be totally, stupidly obvious.

Instead, he moved in the other direction, lower on her thigh, heading toward her knee.

She loosened her grip and moaned.

Damon flicked his gaze up to hers as he slid a hand down inside her panty hose, touching it. Then he slid his hand back up to the tender inside of her thigh. "You are so lovely here." Again he slid his hand down over the nylon part. "And then this nylon. It is absolutely ruthless."

"The nylon panty hose? Are ruthless?"

Damon gave her a devilish smile. "Ruthless."

He stroked his heavy hand from bare thigh to nylon. She loved the way the sensation changed when he did that. Bare skin to nylon. Nylon to bare skin. Heat built between her legs. She clenched the muscles between her thighs to stop the feeling overload.

It didn't stop the feeling overload.

"The panty hose," he said, tracing a finger over her right knee. "It makes you so sexy. I'm not an ankle person but you are exception. Hot and a little bit evil."

Elena could barely breathe. "The panty hose? That is your favourite place?"

"Not exactly." Damon hooked a finger over the panty hose and pulled all the way down to her ankles. She got the crazy sense that he was exposing a tender secret.

Then he blew. The sudden puff of air was cool bliss on her right ankle. "Oh, my God," she panted, clutching his hair way too hard. Damon had found and invaded the tenderest part of her.

Then he kissed it, lips like silk.

It was such a forbidden place to kiss. And unexpected, too—that made it way dirtier.

"Do it again," Elena begged, startled to hear her own voice say that.

Damon smiled up at her, just a little bit evil.

He wouldn't do it again.

She held his hair tighter, every nerve ending taut.

He pulled the panty hose out further. What was he going to do now?

She trembled when he leaned in again and dragged his lip along her right shin. Or maybe that was his tongue. He was like a dirty and unstoppable force of nature.

"This, then," he said. "Would be one of my favourite places on you."

"Damon."

He had turned her on and taken over her senses, and he hadn't even gotten above the knee.

"I can take the panty hose off," she rasped.

"God no." He pulled it up to her shins again.

She looked surprised. "I thought you want to touch me," she said.

"I did."

What was he doing to her? She didn't know. She was breathing fast. Maybe she wasn't getting enough air. The moon seemed too bright. She didn't care, because it was good. "Touch me again."

With a sly look, Damon hooked his fingers under the elastic of her panty hose now.

Then he shoved her legs apart.

Her blood raced as he kissed up, up, up her thigh, keeping her legs apart, fingers in contact with the dirty, secret tattoo of tortured skin he was so into. Every molecule in her was begging him to hurry now, to kiss her throbbing, heated core.

Elena sucked in a breath when he paused at the edge of her panties. "Show me another place," she begged.

Damon pushed her legs apart even further now and pressed his lips to her sex, an exciting pressure through the thin fabric panel. "Oh," she said.

"Is this okay?" he said into her core.

The vibration of his voice nearly sent her over. "Yes. Especially if you talk again."

"Like this?" he rumbled.

"Yes," she hissed.

His low, sexy laugh sent a wave of pleasure up through her. She felt something hard—teeth, grazing her lightly. Then he straightened up, gaze dark, and kissed her belly, her neck.

Elena grabbed his head. He put her hands back. "Sit on your hands."

"On my hands?"

"Do it," Damon whispered. He gave her a stern look. He was used to women worshipping him, doing his bidding, Elena realized. Well, she was all in, dammit. If he could make her feel so good, she would be willing to comply.

He drew near, kissing her, clever hands unzipping the back of her dress.

In fact, Elena realised she liked sitting on her hands. It made her heart race extra fast. It made her feel things more. Damon made her feel things.

He nuzzled her neck as he slid her cap sleeves down over her arms, revealing her bra. The humid heat kissed her skin as he helped himself to her, sliding his hands over her, fingers trailing a whisper of sensation through the lacy fabric.

She wanted him to find more secret places, and to invade each and every one of them. He could have anything. He could have her completely.

Damon drew his hand down her belly, a warm, confident slide that made her inner thighs clench with desire.

"You are so soft," he whispered. "So soft."

He dragged his hot palm back up, and then down again, as though he had to consume every inch of her with his hungry hand. Elena arched under his touch, shivering in the heat. He seemed on the edge of control, like untamed energy was coming out his fingertips. It was a kind of honesty.

He kissed the swell of flesh her bra didn't quite cover. "This is a good place, too," he said, voice ragged.

"A favourite secret place?"

"It is in the running." Damon had pressed his clever fingers under the fabric of her bra now, finding her nipples both at once, toying with them wickedly. Elena sucked in a breath as he covered one nipple with his mouth, drawing hard between flicks of his tongue. Wild energy pulsed clear through her core.

He slid her dress down further, hands a smooth, unpredictable presence on her belly, then slipped his hand down under the elastic of her panties.

Elena exhaled as she felt his fingers slide gently over her silken folds. Damon grunted with a mixture of pleasure and triumph as he delved into her wetness. Her face heated, but she forgot her embarrassment when he pressed a finger clear into her slick channel. "Yes," she breathed. Because, oh, it was heaven.

He pressed in two fingers then, drawing them slowly in and out, letting his thumb play over her sensitized nub, tauntingly, teasingly.

It was hard to stay sitting on her hands. Elena groaned and moved wantonly under his touch, butt cheeks clenching and releasing.

Damon grabbed her thigh, stilling her. "Wider," he whispered, and then he pushed her thigh a bit to the side, getting her just how he wanted. Electric sensation shot through her when he took one of her pebble-hard nipples between his lips.

"I have you," he whispered into her nipple, which was highly erotic. "You are going to come for me."

"Uh, well," Elena whispered. "I don't think I will. I never do."

Damon let go of her nipple. "Never?" He looked at her now, caressing her molten cleft. It was hard to stay looking at his eyes as he touched her, as he had his way with her. She imagined that he could see her feeling what he was doing, which seemed like it should be private. But she also liked the feeling of being open to him and a little bit at his mercy. "Never?" he asked again.

"Not…with somebody," she panted, undulating slightly with him, because it just felt so good. "Not with a guy."

Damon stroked her, more lightly now. Then he leaned in, put his mouth by her ear.

"Except you are already there." He whispered it like it was a dirty secret. "You can't stop yourself from coming now."

"I can't?" Elena asked stupidly as he pressed three fingers into her, furthering his delicious invasion.

"No. I'm sorry, you can't stop it."

Damon continued to touch her with his fingers, caressing her with his thumb, or whatever—she didn't know, it was just a chaos of pleasure. His kiss on her ear felt hot as she began to move with him.

"Uh," she said, losing her train of thought.

"Nothing you can do will stop it." Like he was some aliens, taking over her body where she had no control over it. Well, he was.

But then he stilled.

"No," Elena pleaded, filled with wild craving. "You have to keep going."

Damon nuzzled her neck. He might even have been laughing. "I do?"

"Yes."

Then he moved once more, curling a finger inside her, finding her tender nub, starting up again, relentlessly. She couldn't hide from him, not in words, not in her body.

"Like this?" he whispered.

Elena didn't remember the question but the answer was yes. She had no idea if she was saying it aloud because her world was flying apart. Because he was kissing her and manhandling her and plunging her down, down, down into a sea of pleasure until she broke into bits, there on the dragon's table.


	5. Chapter 5

Damon kept his face pressed to Elena's neck as she came, hoping that she wouldn't notice how he was trembling with the effort to keep control. Not once in the ten dark years since Rose's death had a woman sparked such a powerful feeling in him. Sex was just another function, like sleeping, or eating, and now this.

The timing couldn't be worse. He needed to get into her room, get the recordings, and get out without her knowing what he had taken. He needed to be unmasking Jazzman, not having a hoedown with her panty hose in an alley of Mystic Falls.

Hoedown. That was the way Damon would put it, anyway. Or something equally colourful from Elena's collection of words. She gave her words freely, just like the details of her life. He shifted and kissed her cheekbone.

"Damon." Elena pulled her hands from under her, grabbed his hair, and kissed him. "God." She rubbed her calves on his legs, up and down.

Damon grabbed hold and caressed her ankles. Those goddamn panty hose and her legs. He was losing himself. "I want to take you while you are wearing just these." The truth.

"Here?"

Anywhere, Damon thought. No, he had a job to do. He tightened his grip. "No. In your room. In the hotel room."

Elena searched his face, a question in her eyes. Of course she would feel the unnaturalness of the request that they go back there now. How it broke the flow. She had a way of tracking nuances.

"I will show you another secret place," he said.

"And this must take place in my room? In the hotel?"

"Yes." He pulled her dress back over her. "Turn around." She jumped down and he zipped her up, then he handed over her hat.

Elena took it, still wary. Yes, she had a sense about things. And in the end, she would understand that he was somebody she should have stayed away from, but it would be too late. In the end, Elena was no match for the likes of him. Not someone like Damon.

This sort of thinking usually gave him a pleasant little charge. Now it only made Damon queasy.

She stuffed her hat onto her head and smiled. She sometimes looked haunted, but when she smiled, she had mischief in her eyes. And Damon liked the way she smiled.

He swallowed. "Let's go."

As they neared the hotel, she had him go around to the back. "Just easier this way," she said.

"I see," he said.

Elena unlocked a door that was set into a tall, vine-covered wall, and they entered the empty pool area. The water was a dark mirror, and you could actually hear the night birds over the city traffic. She led him around, keeping to the shadows.

"Everybody is so nosy," she explained, gesturing at the hotel's back face, looming above them. The construction looked late 1960s to him. All concrete, of course, but painted white, and each floor was slightly wider and longer than the one underneath it, making the hotel seem to flare out as it rose up. This type of construction tended to be difficult—but not impossible—to climb. In its most extreme version, it was considered riot-proof.

Elena unlocked the door and led him into a side stairwell. Who was she hiding him from? The Mikaelson? Damon couldn't imagine her with one of the playboy Mikaelson brothers. Were they the ones who told her the hat with a face-covering net was a good idea for a woman on the run? Surely they weren't that stupid.

They climbed the steps to the next floor.

She wouldn't be bringing him home if she had a romantic partner; if there was one thing he had learned from her songs, it was that loyalty and emotional honesty were precious coins to her.

That was why he had been honest about finding secret places in every new city. She required the ring of truth. It was like a toll he'd had to pay to keep the night going.

Damon had left out the important information, of course. Like the fact that the story belonged to his former self, a man who had boarded a train in Mexico City with his fiancée and family some ten years back. He had never quite made it off that train.

Or more, the dark parts of him had gotten off, stumbling around that little village in shock, lying in one of the tents they had put up for survivors, completely alone in the world. Lost. Grieving. Unable to process what he had seen. Unable to understand why some terrorist had to kill so many innocent people.

They had told him that the man responsible, the elusive terrorist Mero, would never be arrested. Nobody knew who he was.

Soon after, Damon had learned that the police had a voice recording of Mero claiming responsibility. They couldn't do anything with it, somebody explained. Nobody could identify a person from a phone message.

Well, somebody could. Given enough time, enough determination.

Everything changed in that moment. Damon quitted his job, and turned his attention to hunting and killing Mero, short for Merodeador. The Spanish word for marauder. He would end Mero. Never again would Mero make a family suffer. He promised he would end Mero, no matter how long it took him.

Damon began his search by studying recent papers on Mexican regionalisms. He created possible geographical profiles—where Mero might be from, where Mero might be living, where he might have attended school.

Eventually he turned to the man himself. The recording showed Mero to be a stylish, charismatic speaker who displayed many unique language tics. For one, he pronounced words beginning with S with great stress and duration, producing the fricative with an intensity that was unusual even for a Mexican. Damon recognized it as the kind of thing followers would tend to pick up, and he knew he could track the hyper-fricative S backwards, almost like a virus; he had written papers on that very subject. Another helpful clue: an oddball bit of slang, the word sumisimo, which Mero used as a lexical intensifier, like the English word very. Sumisimo had occurred in none of Salvatore's Internet corpus searches, suggesting it was unique to Mero's peer group.

Damon moved from village to village, mixing with the people, hunting with his ears. Now and then he had heard something and plot it on a map.

It was a slow process, but Damon had nothing but time and vengeance. Five months in, he was finding more of the markers. The clusters got thicker. He was closing in. He started to hear sumisimo and the hyper-fricative S more often. Soon he was able to identify ground-zero for them both, a little village at the edge of the jungle, a place of concrete-block homes, piles of dirt, and one roadside stand with a dusty red Coca-Cola awning.

From there it was a waiting game.

Mero's voice had a specific boomy quality and he had an unusual way of pronouncing the O sound—produced slightly forward in the mouth, unlike most Spanish speakers. Or most English speakers, for that matter.

Finally, in a rough little bar a mile up the road, Damon located and recorded Mero himself, a grizzly 50-something man with wide cheeks and tiny glasses. He knew it was Mero the instant he heard him, but he liked to be thorough, so he took it back to his truck and ran it through software, comparing the recordings.

Bingo.

As soon as Damon had Mero's identity, he wrote letters to every authority and newspaper he could think of, detailing his search and revealing the terrorist's true name and whereabouts, just in case he didn't succeed in killing Mero. He dropped them in the public mailbox and went to the little roadside stand with the Coca-Cola awning to wait for nightfall and work up the courage to shoot a man. He didn't plan to survive.

It was after he ordered his second Coke that he became sleepy. So sleepy. The next thing he knew, he was lying in a cage in Merodeador's jungle compound.

Every day after that, Mero's men would drag him from the cage and try to beat the name of the snitch out of him—they didn't believe a man could be tracked off language alone.

And every night, Damon would dream of killing Mero. He felt sure Mero himself would come to beat him one day. Damon suspected his best weapon against Mero would be his teeth. He visualized going for the man's jugular and the larynx. It seemed a poetic way for a linguist to kill, sinking his teeth through the voice box, severing the vocal cords, forever stilling their vibration. This was what his PhD had come to.

It was during those beatings that he began to really analyse the way the different guards spoke, the way they produced their words, and he found that it helped him handle the pain of beatings. The more he analysed, the less he felt. Anything could be chopped up into words, phonemes, sounds.

"Here we are." Elena stopped in front of a door in the third-floor hallway. The noise, smells, and lack of carpeting suggested to Damon that this was a staff-only wing.

It occurred to him, as Elena unlocked her door, that she had spent some time in the bathroom freshening up—women always did. He could have the contents of her computer downloaded to his thumb drive in under two minutes, depending on how fast her box booted up. And then get out of there. He needed to get out of there. She was making him feel too much.

Elena let him into her room. "A little small, but they let me use this place for free," she said.

"It is nice." It had been a hotel room once, but she had personalized it with colourful fabrics and hats on the walls, and recording equipment all around. The lair of an artist.

Elena put her guitar in its case and leaned it against the wall. Her laptop, which was covered with shiny stickers, sat on the dresser. She turned to him, smiled nervously, then picked up a shirt and threw it over the chair.

"I didn't expect anybody."

"It is okay." It could be a pit of snakes for all he cared. His gaze fell on a scraggly plant in a coffee cup. Nothing but a stem and a cluster of leaves at the top.

She picked it up. "Amy needs water."

"You name your plants?"

"Just this one. She was growing up from a crack outside the hotel. They would cut it down and she had kept growing back. She just wanted to live. So, I pulled her out and put her here."

Just a stupid plant, Damon told himself, but it touched something painful in him, the idea of this plant coming up again and again after being cut down. Elena fighting to keep it alive. "Rescue plant," he said.

Elena gazed up at him under dark brows, pink lips pursed. "Sounds a bit psycho when you put it like that."

"No." Damon went to her, drawn to her. Whatever that step uncle had done, he hadn't destroyed her spirit.

"Here. Wait there." She thrust Amy into his hands, grabbed a plastic jug, and went to the bathroom, leaving him standing there.

Just a scraggly thing, Damon thought as the sounds of the sink drifted out of the bathroom. Hardly alive.

The click of plastic on the counter. Toilet lid.

Why should he feel all broken up about a plant? He had been hunting the worst scum of humanity for years. He could kill them with his bare hands and enjoy a nice meal and a joke not an hour later, and now he felt emotional about a plant?

It was Elena. She engaged his lizard brain. No—she engaged his former self brain, and that was worse; it made her as dangerous as any laser. And what the hell was he waiting for? She was in there freshening up; this was his chance! He set Amy down and went to the laptop.

Before Damon even could open it, the bathroom door creaked. He turned and pretended to be gazing out the window. Damn.

He was getting sloppy.

"I might bring her to the park." Elena splashed in some water. "I should get a proper container, first off. A coffee cup doesn't drain. I keep thinking I should drill a hole in the bottom."

But she wouldn't have a drill.

Her eyebrows drew together as she inspected the little plant. His eyes followed the line of her smooth cheek down to her long, elegant neck, complete with a hard-drumming pulse. Her mind wasn't only on the plant.

Elena set it next to the window. It would get sun in the morning. "Some rescuer I am."

Damon needed a new plan. He needed not to touch her, but he would now. He went to her and smoothed back her lush dark hair. She closed her eyes as he pulled it aside to kiss that drumming pulse below the edge of her jaw. "You are exquisite," he said.

"Exquisite sounds like a brooch or something. Something dainty."

"No, you can be exquisite and valiant, too."

Damon felt her cheek move. A smile. She seemed to like that.

"Now, where were we?" Elena asked, pulling back. "I do believe you owe me a favourite place."

His mood darkened with that. Damon didn't want to play that game anymore—there was too much honesty in it. "I'm finished with favourite places," he said.

"I'm not."

Elena backed away. Before he knew it, she was standing on the bed. She liked to be onstage. Probably hated wearing the face-covering net she wore during her shows. It would cut off a full connection with her audience.

She pulled off her hat and threw it at him.

Damon caught it, wanting nothing more than to lose himself in her, to let the world melt away. A reckless impulse.

"And it is my birthday…" She glanced at her wrist watch. "It was my birthday since it is past midnight now, so…one more favourite place." She reached around and began to unzip the back of her dress, eyes on him.

Elena gave him a nervous smile. Damon got that she was coasting on a heady mix of vulnerability and bravery, and that made her beautiful. And it made him wonder what she would be like if some madman wasn't forcing her to stay small and silent.

She pushed the sleeves off her shoulders and let the dress fall down over her hips, revealing her flat belly and long legs. She wore only a black lace bra and bikini panties now. And those panty hose.

He forced himself to remain rooted.

"I believe you established a dress code earlier," she said, stepping out of the dress.

"I did," Damon whispered, cock raging against the confines of his slacks. Don't move. Keep control.

Elena narrowed her eyes. "Come here." Her voice was seductive. There was no word more perfect. "Come here," she repeated making the words sound extra sexy, extra sweet, extra dirty.

Damon couldn't stand not touching her anymore. Like a sex-crazed zombie, he went to her, straight into her, not stopping until he had his arms clasped around her legs, face pressed into her crotch. Energy and potency rushed through his veins as he lifted her.

"Hey!"

He ignored her protests, laying her out on the bed. "I'm finishing for you," he grated, undoing the clasp of her bra with uncharacteristically clumsy movements.

His former self movements.

Damon untangled it from her arms and pulled off her panties and panty hose and stood over her, holding them, drinking in the sight of the dark brown curls between her legs. Her natural hair colour. It was all he could do to not claw his clothes off and attack her.

"Happy now?" Elena asked, pulse drumming again in her neck. She ran a foot up his thigh.

"No," he breathed. He had begun the night as a high-functioning spy on an important mission and now he was a starving man who needed this woman more than his next breath.

Slowly, he pulled his suit off, faking a level of cool he didn't possess.

Her eyes darkened as he threw it on the floor.

Damon would not be a slave to his emotions. He forced himself to unbutton his shirt casually. She crossed her legs, rubbing her calves together. He found he could barely work his fingers.

"Do you remember my plan?" he managed to say.

"Yes. And I think you should hurry up and come here."

The delicious word. Come here. So diabolical. "What is my plan?" Finally he had his buttons undone. He ripped off his shirt.

"To take me wearing only my panty hose," she said. "But you have pulled it off already."

With shaking hands, Damon stripped his T-shirt off his sweaty torso, control degrading. Sex was a tool, the price he had pay for a few minutes alone with her computer. Nothing more.

Control.

He focused in on the word. The delivery.

"To take you," he said. "I want you to say it again." His breath felt ragged. "Try again."

She narrowed her eyes. "To take me."

He shook his head. "Forced emphasis." He knew she heard it, too.

"To take…"

"Try again."

"Why? You are a linguist. Tell me why I can't say it convincingly."

Damon was feeling less wild. Good. "The way you said it," he began, discreetly removing his gun from his waistband and slipping it out of sight. He pulled off his pants and both ankle holsters, and finally his boxers. "You should make it more…" He was babbling. Her eyes roved over his steel-hard cock and his breath heated in response. He was a furnace, a fire of need.

He forced himself to sit next to her, to touch her arm and nothing else. You never wanted to have sex when you were trembling with need. "You should make it sound more." He slid his finger down her wrist.

Elena gazed at him warmly. "Like what?"

"Emotional charge, for one. It means a surrender of your body." He fit his hand to hers. It was working; the switch to analysis was calming his rush of feeling. He took her hands and drew them over her head and smoothed her fingers around the newel posts on the headboard. She had liked sitting on her hands. A whiff of immobilization.

Elena closed her eyes and drew up her shoulders. God, Damon could get lost in her.

He swallowed, focused. "It means I want to take you so long and strong…the words can't contain that." He slid his finger over the mound of her breast, skin was like silk.

Dimly Damon realized that he wasn't making sense. Christ, he really was at the edge.

He touched her throat again, the place where her pulse beat erratically.

Her voice sounded rough. "I'm on board with all that, Damon."

He touched her lips, and she bit his finger. She sucked it in. Her mouth was warm and wet and tight. His cock pulsed. He bent down to kiss her belly, voice lowered to a whisper. "It means…." He kissed her breast.

A shimmer of sweat shone under her arms and across her forehead. He wanted to kiss her all over, worship her head to toe. It was not what he did—ever. Sex was a tool. Nothing more. "It means…"

Elena opened her eyes. Smiled. "Maybe the linguist can put a sock in it." She twisted her torso and wrapped her legs around him, and that was the end of the conversation.

Damon climbed right over her, panting and trembling and mindless, sliding his hands greedily over her silky skin, kissing her neck, tangling his fingers in her thick, dark hair.

"Yes," Elena said, sighing with pleasure.

He kissed her neck, tasting her like a man starving. When he finally got to her lips, she sucked in his tongue, just as she had sucked in his finger.

Damon groaned and melted further into her, cock jumping against her thigh. Down her neck and chest he went, covering her with frantic kisses, on down her belly, caressing and worshipping her, feeling her energy coil as he headed toward her pussy.

If this was any other time, any other woman, Damon would tease her a bit. All he could do now was devour.

He slid his fingers down her thighs. And now there was her: dirty, primitive, naïve her, and he didn't know how to take it, how to respond without everything cracking open. He shouldn't take her like this. He might get lost, he might sail off the edge.

A crinkling sound; Elena was fumbling with the condom Damon had put on the bedside table.

He took it from her. She grinned, watching him with sharp eyes full of trust and challenge. He rolled the condom roughly over his dick, and then he grabbed her legs, pressing them onto the bed and apart.

"Yes," Elena gasped.

His objectives were long gone; he moved over her now like a man in a fugue state.

Elena sighed softly as Damon guided himself into her; she felt like a silky warm glove around his cock. He couldn't believe the pleasure of her, the peace of her. He moved inside her, loving her, taking her, driven by a rhythm that seemed to belong to some larger force. Electricity. Magnetism.

Damon pressed his face to her skin, enjoying the spicy, bright scent he had come to associate with her. Then he planted his hands on either side of her and pushed in harder. Elena groaned and said his name, sharp and breathy. When he opened his eyes, he found her looking up at him, face half covered by his hair, which was brushing her eyes and cheekbones.

"I'm tickling you," he grated, stuffing it behind his ears with one hand.

"Put it back," she whispered, messing it up, seeming almost drugged. "Like that." Because she loved the little things. She was so raw, so open. She was dangerous and thrilling.

"Hellbuckets," she said as he felt her tightening, filling with feeling. Relentlessly he pushed harder until her breathing turned to soft moans. He shut her up with a kiss and kept on, plundering her mouth with his tongue until she was on the edge, until she dissolved into vibrations under him.

His own orgasm came up from nowhere and burst through him, splitting his mind. His cry sounded strangled as his body pulsed with feeling.

Damon collapsed on her when it was over and quickly rolled off to the side.

Elena went up on her elbows, looking down at him. "You are all sweaty."

"So are you." He slid his finger along a dart of dark brown hair that had gotten plastered to her sweaty cheekbone, moving in the direction of the strand so as not to disturb it, filled with a strange pride just for getting her all sweaty. Like he had branded her or something.

When Damon removed his finger, Elena directed a puff of air at it from the side of her mouth, trying to dislodge it. It didn't move. This delighted him unaccountably, which was maybe why he allowed her to lie back and pull his head to her chest. Resting his head on a woman's chest was something he hadn't done for over a decade, not since he had been with his fiancée, Rose.

And then Elena started to hum a tune—You Are My Sunshine. The vibrations filled him, soothed him. Damon had the curious feeling that he didn't know who he was, or what anything was, or even where he was.

He flashed on the image of a medieval map, the known world in the centre and ocean at the edges. They used to think that if you sailed too far out into the ocean, you would fall off the edge. He was gripped with that feeling now—of being too far out in the ocean, of nearing the edge.

He pulled himself away from her, feeling seasick.

"What?" she asked.

Damon looked down at her. He had done what he had to do to get into her room: he had given her his former self Now he needed to get at that computer.

Damon said nothing; he simply got up and went into the bathroom. His cock had calmed down enough for him to pull off the condom and throw it in the trash. He washed up, hands twisting and sliding in and out of each other under the gushing water. He got lost in it a little bit, washing faster and harder as the memory of holding the severed hand kicked up. Even now he could feel it, resting in his palm, dead and rubbery.

Keep it together, Damon told himself. He just had to copy that recording.

He shut off the water and grabbed a towel. Her purse lay open on the counter, lipstick and little plastic makeup boxes strewn around it. She had tried to make herself beautiful. She shouldn't have bothered. She understood a lot of things, but she had no idea what he was.

He hung the towel back up with quick, efficient movements. Anybody could carry out a plan when things went well. The best agents were the ones with the balls to stay the course when things went to hell.

This would qualify. Her chipping at his walls.

Damon splashed water on his face, getting his focus back. He could have Jazzman's identity within the hour.

The bed squeaked from the other room. Elena appeared in the mirror behind him and circled her arms around him. Happy, glowing. "That was so amazing," she whispered. "And I mean, so, so, amazing."

Damon looked at the pair they made, two moving parts in the Association machine. He was sorry that he had reduced her to that.

His gaze fell to her hands on his abs; he counted the moments until he could reasonably dislodge himself.

"You are forgetting something," Elena said.

"What?"

"That you owe me that favourite place."

"So I do," he said.

"Fine. I will take a rain check."

Damon turned to face her, removing her hands. "How about a shower instead?"

Her eyes lit. "Mmmm."

"You start it up. I have to make a phone call."

"At two in the morning?"

"A linguist's work is never done." Damon lowered his voice. "You go in first and lather yourself up. I want you to be perfectly and completely lathered. And don't think I won't inspect."

Elena snorted, amused. "What happens if I'm not?"

"All kinds of things will happen."

"Well, with an offer like that." Elena grinned. "I can't see the reason to decline it."

Damon headed back out to the bedroom, pulling out his thumb drive, along with his phone, just for show. Soon he heard the crash of water. Drawers. Shower door open. Shower door closed.

He strolled over to her laptop and fired it up. The damn thing took its time coming to life. Once he was in, he poked around until he found a file entitled music and photos. Updated five hours ago.

Damon slid it over. Watched the bar. If the voice of Jazzman was on there, it would be all worth it. It had to be.


	6. Chapter 6

With shaking hands Elena texted Finn as the steam from the shower filled the bathroom. The message was simple: HELP! Man in my room. John's thug?

He got right back to her: Coming.

Thank God for the Mikaelson brothers. Night owls, all of them.

She sent the same text to Caroline, and then quietly she put away the phone, still unable to believe what she had seen when she had poked her head out to grab an extra towel.

Damon. Looking at her computer.

Elena felt sick—physically ill. She had felt so connected to him, so brave with him. She had shown him bits of her soul. He had made love to her like the world was crashing down around his ears. He was another traveller on the moon, goddammit.

Had Damon faked their connection? Could a person even do that? Or was the connection there, and he had simply used it to betray her?

Quiet as a mouse, Elena pulled on her robe. Then she took her gun from her purse.

Back in the D.C, one of the thugs John had sent after her had cuffed her to her porch railing, pulled off the wig she had been wearing, and photographed her. He said he wouldn't get paid without proof of identity.

Maybe that was what this guy was doing, then. Getting proof of identity for John. Why else go through her computer? She looked different with the highlights on her hair; maybe he had decided he needed her songs and her writings or something. Damon wasn't lying when he had said he would take her, was he?

Elena wiped her palms on her robe and adjusted her grip, eyes hot with tears. The skills she had developed over months of hard practice down in the basement shooting range had made her feel safer, but what good were they? She didn't think she could actually shoot a person. Not even this man who had betrayed her so cruelly.

She should have been tipped off by how alert he had seemed, and how he noticed everything. John would lose it if he knew his P.I. had screwed her, but this guy would deny it. And if John ever did get hold of her, it was the last thing she would tell him. John would do something horrific to her in punishment.

Elena wished Finn would hurry. What if Damon—or whatever his name was—left and alerted John? She would have to leave instantly—no passport, no money. She would be in a very dangerous position.

The little room felt hazy. Elena ran her thumb over the grip of her gun.

Maybe he was sending the stuff to John now. She would be put back in that house—that was what John wanted. A prisoner there until he got out. Forced conjugal visits. Maybe this guy was looking through her searches and emails to see who was helping her.

Caroline.

John would find out that Caroline had helped her. He would kill Caroline.

Elena couldn't wait for the cavalry. It wasn't just her life on the line.

She sucked in a breath, and then crept out of the bathroom. There he was, naked, sitting at her computer.

Elena pointed the gun, a two-hand hold, feet planted. "Stand up," she said. "Hands off the computer."

Damon looked up with a quizzical expression, like she was being amusing at a cocktail party. And then he smiled. That cool fortress of humour and untouchability was back, and she hated it.

His eyes fell to her Ruger. "Really?"

The rumble of her own voice surprised her. "Shut up!"

"Fine." He pointed at his clothes. "I'm just going to—"

"Hands up. No fooling, no joking," she said.

His sigh had an edge of humour. Elena had the crazy sense that he was immune or something.

"Do it."

"A gun. I have never liked guns," he said. "Bombs, guns, they are dullard's tools, don't you think? For somebody who has nothing left to say—that is what a gun is. The end of a conversation."

Rage rose up in Elena. As if he didn't care that she held a gun, as if her reality didn't mean as much as his. He was making her feel crazy, just like John used to. "Hands up."

"You won't shoot me," Damon said. Like he set the rules.

She forced herself to speak. "The hell I won't." Where were the Mikaelsons?

"You won't shoot a man for putting on his clothes, will you? Shoot a man in the back?" Damon turned his back to her.

"I will."

He pulled his socks off the small pile of clothes on the floor. Looking for his gun? John's man would have a gun.

Her voice sounded hysterical to her ears. "Hands up or I shoot."

He grabbed his pants.

She aimed a hair to the right of his arm and squeezed the trigger.

Bang. Damon jerked up, clutching his triceps. Then he turned to her. "So you will," he said.

Elena had meant just to graze him. She was pretty sure she had only grazed him.

But the way Damon looked at her; it really was like he was a different person.

He lifted away his hand; his palm was covered in blood. He put it back. "Either you are a very good shot or a very bad one.

"Arms up."

"I'm bleeding."

"Do it."

Damon sighed, and then, of all things, he smiled. Like it was all a joke. "I thought we are having fun."

Heat rushed to her cheeks. He was trying to make fun of her now? "Damn you." She shot the wall. Concrete sprayed.

Again Damon smiled and, still naked, he scooped up the flash drive and covered the distance to the balcony, pulling the door open.

"Stop!"

He kept on.

Crap. Elena would have to hurt him if she wanted to stop him now. He knew she didn't have it in her. He had figured her out.

Just then, two figures slid down onto the dark balcony from ropes, grabbing Damon as he tried to escape to the neighbour's balcony. Damon fought them—it was like a dark whirlwind of arms and flashing eyes out there. Her table overturned with a crash of glass. She heard punches connecting and a grunt that sounded very Damon. Two more dark figures leaped up from below. There was more fighting. The metal of a gun flashed in the moon.

They had guns, and Damon didn't.

Elena stepped back as they dragged Damon in, naked, bleeding from his arm—and his lip, now, too.

Terse commands and military-fast moves put him on his knees, still naked. A guard bound his hands behind his back with rough precision. It was like an action movie. The door behind her clicked. She turned and jumped aside as three guards burst in from the hall, followed by Finn and Klaus Mikaelson.

Elijah came up next to her. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

"No," Elena whispered. "I mean, he didn't attack me or anything," she said when she realized what Elijah meant. "Fooled me is all."

Elijah held out his hand. "May I?"

"Oh." She let him have her gun.

Caroline burst in. "Elena!" She flung an arm around her. "Honey!" she said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay."

Klaus strolled to the far end of the room to where Damon knelt and said something she couldn't hear. Damon simply stared at the ceiling, bored. Too cool for all this nonsense.

Outrage welled up in Elena's breast when one of the guards going through Damon's clothes pulled out a gun and set it on her desk. Stupid to feel upset about that after what he had said about guns, as if they had some pact of truth that transcended everything. Another gun was set out, complete with holster. And another.

"Three guns? Really?" Her voice sounded high. Hysterical. "For somebody with nothing to say. A dullard who works for John."

Damon finally looked at her, expression hard and remote as he was pulled to his feet, barely phased by the fact that he was naked and surrounded by five heavily-armed men. Elena was phased by it. She wished somebody would cover him so she wouldn't have to see his cock, like a bouncing taunt every time he moved. I made love you and you loved it.

Klaus was in his face, mumbling questions she couldn't hear, questions that Damon didn't care to answer, apparently. Maybe he knew when he was beaten. He seemed to have stopped bleeding, at least.

"John knows," she said to Caroline. "Maybe it really was Trevor who I saw in the restaurant."

"It wasn't," Caroline said. "You are okay."

"How can you say that? It is over. I have to get out of here. You all have done so much—" Elena waved at the team of thugs. "I'm more grateful than you will ever know."

"You can't leave," Elijah said.

Caroline hugged Elena closer. "We won't let you," she whispered. "We are here to keep you safe."

"I have to."

Elijah studied her face. Softly he said, "He may not have made his report to John."

"He made a call. He could have sent an email. He could have partners." Elena's eyes blurred with tears. "I have been found."

Elijah called for Conor to bring over Damon's phone, along with her laptop. "Check your last sent emails," he instructed.

Elena took the laptop, sat on the bed, and checked. Nothing had gone out.

"The last call he made was hours ago, to a local cell," Elijah said, pocketing Damon's phone. "Nothing to Richmond for three days." The guards had Damon lying face down on the floor now.

Elena kept her voice low. "It doesn't matter. Police will let him have a phone call and he will call John."

Conor brought over the man's wallet. He pocketed money and credit cards. Then he pulled out a business card and held it up, smirking. Joseph Silas, Ph.D., University of Virginia. He crumpled it and threw it aside. "Fake."

"Don't let him separate you from the herd," Elijah said quietly.

"I agree. He hasn't made contact with John," Caroline whispered. "Running now would be the worst thing you could do."

"I'm putting you all in danger," Elena said. "He was probably trying to figure out who is helping me and all that. He is going to tell John."

"Do you trust us?" Elijah asked.

"Of course." Elena glanced at Caroline. It was Caroline she trusted.

"Let us deal with this," Klaus said.

Panic flared in her belly. "I don't want anybody hurt. So if that is what you mean…"

"Agreed." Caroline put her arm around Elena, eyeing Elijah. "That is a non-negotiable."

Klaus grunted and signalled at the guards, who pulled Damon up from the floor and walked him past, cuffed and at gunpoint. Damon didn't so much as look her way.

Caroline closed the door after them.

"Wait—where are they taking him?" Elena asked.

"We are going to keep him here as a guest." Klaus said calmly. "We will learn what John knows."

Elena shook her head. She didn't like any of it. "No."

"This is a business situation," Klaus continued. "For a price, this investigator can be persuaded that it was not you he saw. And if we learn John has your location, we will set you up with a new identity and money. But it must be done correctly, Elena. Tell me everything that happened."

Elena's face went red.

"Of relevance," Caroline said.

Elena told them the G-rated version of the story, all the way up until she caught him going through her laptop. "He was copying something onto that thumb drive thingy."

"Did we get it?" Klaus asked.

Conor fished in his pocket and tossed the thumb drive to Klaus, who grabbed her laptop and settled onto the bed.

"A guest? You won't take him to the police?" Elena asked.

Klaus looked up. "Do you want us to take him to the police? We would if you wanted."

"I don't want him reporting back to John," Elena said. "But you can't keep him against his will."

Elijah said, "We could hand him to the police and the police will hold him against his will. And let him call John. Would you like that?"

"Stop it, Elijah." Klaus hit a few keys. "This is simple business, Elena. We offer him something better than what John provided. Everyone has a price."

Caroline said, "It is a win-win. Even for this guy."

"I don't know," Elena said.

Caroline whispered, "All he wants is a payday. He will make extra money and not have to wreck a woman's life. He will be laughing all the way to the bank."

It made sense, put like that. "I don't want him hurt. And I shot him. Just grazed, but it should be looked at."

"He will have the best care," Finn said.

Assurances from Finn. Never satisfying. Elena pointed at the screen. "The recording from the show. That is all he downloaded. Maybe he wanted the recordings from the show tonight as proof. John would recognize my singing."

"Hmm," Klaus said. "Yes. To bring back to John. I didn't realize you were still making the recordings. No more for now. No more recording of any kind."

Her pulse raced. "Maybe I should leave while I can. I don't want problems here. You all have been such a family to me—"

"Elena," Caroline said. "This is not a problem."

"No problem," Elijah added.

"Whatever you pay him, I will pay you back. I will find a way," Elena said. "I promise."

Klaus closed the laptop and stood. "We will work it all out."

Caroline stayed on after the Mikaelson brothers left. "Are you okay?"

Elena looked at the closed door. "Five guys armed to the teeth for one naked man? What do they think he will do?"

Caroline rolled her eyes. "God, the Mikaelson brothers. They just love to parade around their guys and their guns. It is a black market thing. Show of strength. They wouldn't hurt a fly."

Elena didn't look convince. "Are you sure?"

"That would make them no better than John, wouldn't it?" Caroline said. "Come on, what really happened?"

"Nothing. I mean it was nice until—" she motioned at the little table where Damon had sat, raiding her laptop. "He seemed so…. I need to take a shower."

"Yeah, you wash him off you. I will ask someone to make us some nice tea." Caroline was a big believer in tea.

The shower felt good, and when Elena came out, Caroline was sitting in on the sofa with two steaming mugs of tea at the ready.

"I'm so freaked out," Elena said, taking her seat. "Maybe I should leave."

"If worse comes to worse, we will hide you. There are a lot of places to hide a person. We can do that in a hotel. Especially this one." Caroline dunked her teabag up and down. "So, one second you are doing your show, and suddenly you are at Bree's café having kebab? And then…"

"Yup."

"Back here."

"Yup."

Caroline raised her brows like she did when she wanted more details, but Elena didn't feel like spilling them. God, staying loyal to the feeling that had run between them even after the guy turned out to be John's. "It is official. I go for the worst jerks possible. Still…" Elena looked up. "Where are they keeping him? What will they do?"

"They will speak each other's language," Caroline said. "Business. This is the best thing that could have happened to this investigator. More money and he can avoid the police."

"Right but, where do they keep him? In a room? What is there to stop him from leaving? Do they tie him up or what? I just need to know."

"You need to trust," Caroline said. "There is nobody better to be on your side."

"I want to know what is happening in the name of protecting me."

Caroline set down her cup. "I will check it out. Okay?"

"Now?"

"Once things settle."

Elena had decided to stay in the hotel instead of going back to her house. Caroline had offered to stay with her but she declined it. She tried to sleep after Caroline left, but she kept waking up thinking about John and his angular face and angular smile that never seemed happy. Once she woke up with her heart racing, convinced John was right there in her room. That was the end of sleep.

She knew it was her fault that she had let John control her and isolate her for all those years. She thought she was protecting Jeremy. But she was wrong.

It was always such a relief when John's military contractor gigs took him out of town, but even then she didn't dare step out, especially not toward the end, because he had guys watching her. The FBI agent had given her a burner phone during John's last out-of-town trip, and Elena had searched the house with him directing her around. The agent said John had been involved in a murder of some sort. It had been nerve-wracking, even with John gone. The agent had said John would never know it was her who had helped the FBI, but she had always assumed John would find out. He probably already had.

And now John might know where she was. If not, he was close to knowing. Could the Mikaelson brothers really protect her? Could they reason with Damon?

The little bedside clock said 4:35 am.

Elena put on her robe, went out onto the balcony, and gazed at the sky. It was pinkish at the lower edges from the haze of neon, with a crescent moon high above. She hated that Mystic Falls' moon was the same moon for John. She felt as if the moon itself was staring at her. Like John was looking through the moon.

She texted Caroline. Learn anything?

No answer. Caroline had probably crashed.

What the hell. She texted Elijah. Anything?

He texted right back. You are safe. John knows 0. No problem. :)

Elena felt a great gust of relief. John didn't know.

What about the guy? She wrote back.

Negotiating. No problem.

No problem, Elijah's favourite phrase. What did it mean? Were they still in the process of negotiating? Did they have assurances? She put aside her phone.

The whole thing didn't make sense when she really thought about it. Why go through all the trouble of breaking into her room? If he had really wanted proof of her being her, hell, just record her show with a phone. Snap her photo. It wasn't like she got plastic surgery. But then, why else sneak into her computer? And he didn't deny he was working for John.

Elena couldn't stand it anymore. She called Elijah. "What is happening?"

"He is contemplating," Elijah said.

A chill went over her. "So he hasn't agreed to anything."

"He will," Elijah said.

"What if he really teaches at the university?" she asked. "You can't just detain him."

"He doesn't teach at the university," Elijah said. "We check out these kinds of things. He had three guns, Elena, including one designed to defeat an airport metal detector. This is not a man from the university."

Elijah had a point there.

"What if he won't cooperate? Maybe if I speak to him—"

"You cannot."

"I think he would respond to the human element. Whatever money you offered him, maybe I can persuade him on a moral basis. And I'm paying you back by the way. Whatever money…"

"This is now our affair. A man threatened one of our guests." Elijah's clipped tone meant business. "I promise you, this type of man does not respond to the human element."

Elena stared out at the moon, unsure how to explain that she did think he would respond. They had connected. That was real—she was sure of it. Damon had used their connection. Maybe she could use it to get him on her side. "But it can't hurt for me to talk to him, right?"

"Leave it to us," Elijah said firmly. "I'm going to sleep now, and so should you."

She stared at the phone after he clicked off.

None of this sat right. This was her life. Her business.

"Sorry, Elijah," she said belatedly to the phone. She threw on some clothes, stuffed her gun into her purse, and wandered down to the lobby.

Her friends April and Violet were behind the desk, full of concern and questions. They had heard a man was trying to take her laptop. A thief—that was the staff rumour. Good to see the staff grapevine going at full speed.

Jesse the bellboy pushed an empty luggage cart off the elevator and parked it on the other side of the lobby. If anybody knew where they put the man, Jesse would. And Jesse would tell her. They were pals.

Elena went over. "I know he is still here. Where would they have put him?"

"Elena…" he shook his head.

"Jesse." She smiled.

"Well, he is not in a room, if that is what you are asking," Jesse said. He was proud of being the eyes and ears of the hotel. Five minutes later Elena had gotten it out of him: they were holding Damon on LL2, the basement under the basement. In the holding cell. Of course.

Elena had never actually seen the holding cell, but she had heard one was down there on the other side of the shooting range. She recalled the Mikaelson brothers catching a group trying to skip out on their bill and holding them down there for the cops. You sure didn't see American hotels with their own private jails. Except the hotels that belonged to the Mikaelson brothers.

There were two ways to LL2: the elevator—if you had a key, which Elena did, or the liquor delivery hatch. You needed a key for the liquor hatch, too; they kept it behind the desk. She knew because she had gone down there last year, helping one of the bar-backs bring up wine when the dumbwaiter was broken. That would be the sneaky way to go.

"Are they with him? Is he alone?"

Jesse furrowed his brow, lips drawn to the side, his look concerned. "You shouldn't cross this line, Elena. Not even you."

Elena wasn't worried. She had nothing to fear from the Mikaelson except for their rabid over-protectiveness.

"Are they down there with him?"

Jesse glanced at the ceiling.

"They are up top?"

"New convention arrivals. Klaus, Finn and Elijah are entertaining on the 17th floor."

Elena went behind the desk and grabbed a cup of coffee, and when the girls weren't looking she nicked the key to the hatch.

x x x

 _NEW YORK_

Wes was alone in the back of the limo when the alert on his mobile came through. Damon's earpiece had been destroyed. Wes swore under his breath.

To the naked eye, an Association earpiece looked like a bit of wadded-up paper, like a gum wrapper. Associates typically carried them in their pockets until they wanted to communicate with Wes. It was a good system; bottom-of-the-pocket garbage was never seized in a search.

From what he could tell from the damage readout, this one had been crushed.

It happened. An earpiece could be lost in a fight and stepped on. But what Damon was doing shouldn't have him fighting. Or getting killed.

Nearly five in the morning in Mystic Falls. But Ric would still be up. He called the assassin and sent him back to the Grill Hotel to poke around.

The limo pulled up at a curb in front of a red awning. Wes scooted over to let Isobel in.

She wore thick round glasses and a mod scarf over her long brown hair. She had always been a colourful dresser, even at the agency.

"Damon has gone dark," Wes said as the driver pulled away after Isobel had got inside.

"God help us." Isobel turned her face to look out the window. The buildings flashed by, faster and faster. "When?"

"It could be nothing," he said. He wished he knew who the Russians had hired to go after Damon.

"He shouldn't even be out there," Isobel said. "He needs rest."

"I know," Wes said.

Damon had been one of their best operatives for years, but Isobel was right—they had been running him hard. The man needed rest. Except nobody else could hunt Jazzman the way cool, unflappable, high-performance Damon could. He was also wildly motivated—the TZ would surely remind him of the Mexican train bomb. In some ways, Damon had been living on that train for the past decade, helpless to rescue his people, trying over and over. Like a desperate player in a never-ending nightmare.

No, he had never gotten off that train. It was what made him such a fine Associate.

Philosophers said that the individual shouldn't be sacrificed on behalf of the many. Wes agreed with that, but he sacrificed good people anyway. He and Isobel did it all the time. How could they help it? They knew things nobody else did, thanks to Wes' ability to see cause and effect.

There was no voodoo to what he did; it was logic. Information. Knowledge. These things were available to everybody. Why couldn't everybody see what he saw?

Wes' mind was dark with webs of cause and effect.

Isobel licked her thumb and swiped it across Wes' jaw. "You could at least wipe the lipstick off before we meet the Colonel."

"What is he going to do? Fire us?"

"Decorum is important, even when you are the smartest man in the room." She licked her thumb again and rubbed his jaw. "My poor boy." She frowned. "Is that a tooth mark?"

He thought back. The one in his office just now hadn't been a biter, but there was the stranger at the restaurant, one table over. They had ended up in the bathroom. She had ripped him up a bit. "Probably."

"You can't use sex as medication, Wes."

"Beg to differ." He needed something to ratchet him down, and sufficient quantities of drugs and alcohol only wrecked him.

Isobel rooted around in her purse and pulled out a makeup bag.

"I'm not wearing makeup."

"Then don't let women bite your face. Now sit still." She dabbed a bit on. "Were things up today?"

"By 34%," he said. "I'm going to have to create some losses." Wes ran the legendary Heraclides Fund, a large, successful hedge fund that made investors very wealthy. He had gotten bored with making money early on; the Heraclides Fund was only a cover job now. These days, Wes put his attention on keeping the balance of power intact. Keeping World War Three from happening. And stopping the most despicable crimes.

He had met Isobel over a decade ago, back when they were both in their twenties. He used to call the CIA whenever he saw dangerous cascades beginning, and she got assigned to be his handler. Unfortunately, his predictions had been too accurate—Isobel's bosses had started to suspect him of involvement in the disasters he foresaw.

Isobel knew differently. She had begun to shield him, and to work on her own to prevent catastrophes. Years as an operative in the field had given her tremendous resources.

Forming the Association had been Isobel's idea.

Wes had the foresight and people skills; she ran the execution and the strategy. She stayed the silent partner. Safer for both of them.

It was a dark path they walked. They were hardly better than vigilantes, no matter how noble their goals might be.

"Keep it quiet about Damon," she said. "We don't need the Colonel panicking."

The CIA had sent the Colonel to pressure them about the TZ, to stress its importance, something Wes didn't need to hear. A full 87% of the scenarios involving the TZ getting sold ended in biological and nuclear exchanges.

"Ric will find him," Wes said. "Ric is very attached to Damon."

"We need Damon out of the equation," she said. "As soon as he identifies Jazzman, he is out. He is coming apart."

Wes said nothing. It was true, of course. The only surprise was that it hadn't happened before.

Damon had first come to their attention via rumours inside the terrorist Mero's organization—a gringo prisoner who claimed to have tracked Mero with nothing but a voice recording.

It had piqued their interest, to say the least.

Isobel herself had gone into the field to check out the story. She learned about the train bombing, and soon had a name: Damon Salvatore, Ph.D. Records showed him losing his family and fiancée in the event. Damon had listed a Mexican national as his contact on the medical forms: Lorenzo (aka Enzo) St John.

Professor Enzo St John was a Caribbean creole specialist and a friend of Damon; Enzo's seaside villa had been the Damon's destination. From Enzo, Isobel learned that Damon had new theories on the way slang spread, and apparently he was doing some sort of work on psychological and aspirational aspects of pronunciation. Enzo felt certain that Damon could use what he knew to track a man.

Wes and Isobel had been thrilled. It had taken them a full year to locate the elusive Mero—and they had resources. Networks.

This linguist had nothing but a recording.

They sent Ric in to kill Mero and extract the man. By the time Ric had reached Mero's camp, Damon Salvatore was a walking, talking death wish who could see nothing but vengeance. The man had lost everybody, after all. He had spent a night helping other survivors pull the dead and dying from wreckage in the dark, bug-infested jungle, and then survived weeks of beatings from Mero's men. In hindsight, they really should have patched him up a bit, psychologically speaking.

Instead, Wes had him thrown into the harshest wilderness survival training possible. Damon had turned out to be tenacious as well as brilliant, and quite a talented fighter—one of those men who was good at everything. Wes sometimes suspected Damon might have eventually managed to kill Mero on his own.

At any rate, they had needed Damon in the field, ASAP, so they had wounded him up and set him off as a mere shell, disconnected from everything that made a man human.

Wes and Isobel had no use for happy, well-balanced Associates—they tended not to deliver. Darkness was predictable; happiness was not. Happy people had the luxury of simply being. And they had more to lose.

Wes and Isobel worked a delicate dance of keeping the Associates from self-destructing while engaging their demons.

Wes took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Your head?" Isobel asked.

"I'm fine." He replaced his glasses.

"Okay," she said quietly.

"There is a special place in hell for us," he said.

She straightened his tie as they pulled up to the restaurant. "I will bring the flame-proof croquet set."


	7. Chapter 7

_MYSTIC FALLS_

A craving—that was Elena's excuse for her five-a.m. stroll. The front desk girls believed her. Jesse didn't, but he had kept quiet.

The town centre of Mystic Falls was not busy at five in the morning. It was a nice morning, with a slight breeze cutting the oppressive humidity.

Elena strolled nonchalantly around the corner. The street that ran up the side of the Grill Hotel had just two lanes, and it was darker and gloomier. Which suited her just fine. She stopped at a square manhole in the sidewalk—the liquor delivery hatch, the secret way to get into the basement. She had walked over it many times and never thought about what was beneath until the night of the dumbwaiter crisis.

Voices from the other direction. She slunk into the shadows as a couple stumbled up the street, clasping the key, feeling like a spy, shocked at herself for even going this far.

Oh, the Mikaelson brothers would so unhappy if they knew. Klaus would think she didn't trust them to handle this. Caroline would feel betrayed. Elena could hear her: why didn't you wake me up if you were so concerned?

But Elena was tired of leaving her fate to others.

When the coast was clear she crouched at the hatch. There was supposed to be a locked door below it, and two people were supposed to open the doors simultaneously from either side, like an armoured car or something, but one of the busboys had told her that it was a big hassle for the receiving guys, so they often left the inner door open. She hoped it was open now.

Elena unlocked the outer door and slowly pulled it up. She tried the inner door. Sure enough, it fell open—with a loud bang that nearly stopped her heart.

She froze, listening for sounds.

Nothing.

She climbed partway down the metal ladder, easing the outer door down over her head until it snicked closed. Down the rest of the way she went, into a concrete corridor lit by garish fluorescent lights. This would be lower level one, aka LL1. She snuck past the liquor storage area and kept on, passing some sort of mechanical room, and then a door with warning signs about chlorine. The massive hotel pool would be nearby. She found another stairwell; this would lead to LL2—the basement security area that housed the shooting range.

And the detention area.

Elena headed downward into the sticky, stuffy depths, every nerve on high alert. The stairwell terminated at another locked door; her shooting range key worked, as she suspected it might. She snuck in and closed the heavy metal door, leaning against it, sweating. Shaky.

Past the point of no return. If Klaus caught her here, she would be turned out for sure. Well, hell, she might have to leave anyhow. She needed to know firsthand what she was dealing with.

Elena proceeded down the dark hall toward a splotch of light cast through an open door. She froze when she heard the faint strains of voices. Arguing. A woman's voice. No—a TV.

She crept in further, then knelt and peeked into the room. TVs lined the walls, but two guards were fixated on the TV in the corner. Nobody had realised she was here.

She crawled past and tiptoed on down the hall. She crept around the corner and down another hall to the end. After a few more turns and one dead end, she found an unmarked door with a dirty window in it. The detention area.

Elena peeked in.

The room was dim, lit only by a buzzing fluorescent bulb in the corner, but she could just make out what looked like a jail in there—bars marking off a square cage in the corner. Too dark to see if anyone was in there.

Was she really doing this?

Elena sucked in a deep breath. Hell, yeah.

The door creaked when she entered. She froze like a rabbit, listening.

Nothing. She eased the door closed and just stood there, squinting into the gloom of the cage. Her breath caught when she finally made him out, sprawled in the shadows with his back to her, his dark brown, almost black hair faintly illuminated by the anaemic light.

Not moving.

Her pulse raced. The Mikaelson brothers wouldn't kill a man just to protect her. They wouldn't.

Elena moved closer, straining to see if his chest was rising and falling. They had clothed him in pants and a T-shirt that appeared to be soaked with sweat. Surely that was a sign of life.

"Come back for more target practice?"

Elena jumped at the voice.

"Because you could certainly use it," he added.

"Lord, I thought…" She closed her eyes in brief thanks that he was alive.

"You need more practise. Your shots are pathetic." Still he just lay there, like a wounded beast.

"I'm not in the mood for jokes. I want to talk about John."

No response.

Elena looked around and spotted a camera above her head. It probably wouldn't record in the darkness, but she took out a pencil and nudged it up, then moved nearer to the bars. She wished she could see his face. You couldn't connect with a person's back.

"I know John probably promised you a goodly sum to turn me over," she continued. "Probably threatened you to boot."

Still he didn't turn around. She grabbed the bars, frowning at his sweat-soaked back. What were the Mikaelson brothers thinking? Keeping a man in a cage wasn't right. Even a thug of John's.

John's thug. It still didn't sit right. How could this man be John's thug? It defied her intuition.

"Look," she said. "I know the Mikaelson made you an offer. And I'm sure they don't want you down here. And I sure don't want it. If only you would agree to keep quiet about seeing me. If you care at all…" Did he?

Silence.

"I have a home here, and a life that is a little bit worth living. Maybe I should think about moving on, but that takes time. Please, if you would just take the money. I can't go back to him." Oh, God, Elena was begging. She had meant to come in rational. She steadied her voice. "That is what I'm asking you. Forget you saw me and we can get you out of here." She looked nervously at the door hoping the TV programme was enough to keep the guards occupied.

"Don't worry," he said, tracking with her somehow. "They have only come by twice, and they never bother to come in."

He shifted there in the dark, finally turning to look at her. His face and shirt were half covered in something dark. Blood.

Elena was aghast. "Oh, my God! Are you okay?"

"Define okay," he said.

Anger surged through her. This man had been hurt on her behalf? It didn't matter who he was or what he had done. "This is wrong."

"The keys are right there on the wall."

Elena swung her gaze around—keys hung from a hook on the wall. She could let him out. "I need to know you won't tell John where I am. You will get out if and when we have assurances of that."

"If and when you have assurances," he repeated. Like that was funny.

"What?"

"You really need to specify both if and when? Once the if is handled, the when is a permanent state."

Elena gripped the bars. "Well, thank you, Professor Devil, PhD in asshole arrogance."

"You are welcome."

Carrying on so nonchalantly when he was a beaten-up prisoner in the basement of a hotel in Mystic Falls? Was it just another day at the office for him? "How about if you talk normal like a human?"

"John didn't send me," Damon said. "How is that?"

Elena gripped the bars more tightly. She had needed to hear that. Everything inside her screamed for him not to be John's thug. Should she believe it? "Then who sent you? What were you doing copying my files?"

Silence.

"So, you have no explanation."

"Look," Damon finally said. "I have nothing to do with this John of yours. Take it or leave it."

Elena narrowed her eyes. "Why should I? Why should I believe you after all of your lies?"

"Because I'm telling you the truth."

"I need to understand why else you would copy stuff off my computer."

Damon grunted, watching her with that implacable gaze. Even lying there in defeat, he radiated power, virility. Slowly he sat himself up. She let go of the bars and stepped back, as if he could get her from in the cage.

"Oh, don't worry." Chains clanked as Damon lifted his leg. "I'm attached to the wall by leg irons. I hate to say it, but I'm afraid this type of guest service is going to cost the Grill Hotel a half a star. With so many luxury hotels featuring featherbeds these days, leg irons on a concrete floor is something I simply can't overlook."

Elena felt sick. Leg irons? Did Caroline know about all this?

"What's more," he continued, "providing a rusty metal can instead of proper bathroom facilities simply doesn't cut mustard with today's traveller. That will cost the Grill Hotel yet another half a star."

"You think this is a time to joke?"

"I will take that as a rhetorical question." Some of his hair fell in his face as he leaned forward and rubbed his ankle under the leg iron. There was blood even in his hair. He was hurt and he covered it by being an asshole.

"I'm trying to talk to you real."

Damon lifted his eyes to her and leaned back against the far wall.

"Just don't tell him where I am," she said. "I will give you money. I have money in the bank I can get at in a few days. I will pay you everything I have. Don't you want to get out?"

"I'm not here on behalf of John."

"Why else would you copy the recording of my show? And the Mikaelson brothers know you are not a guest lecturer at the university, so I don't want a story about that."

"Ah."

"Obviously, you weren't there to attack me or rob me. Because you could have, with three guns on you. So much for guns being dullards' tools. The end of the conversation for somebody who has nothing left to say."

"Oh, I meant every word. They are dullards' tools. It is just that my conversation ended long ago."

Elena had a strange thought, suddenly. "You didn't take my laptop," she said. "That would have been easier."

"Hindsight's 20/20."

This guy, like nothing was serious. Well, screw it—it had been a kindness. "I still believe what you told me about when you were a kid. To have to say goodbye to all the familiar people and places over and over. I know you know what that is like." Elena paused, scuffing her foot, thinking about their connection. "You know what it is like when you can never go home again."

Damon groaned, but she could tell from the last two years in front of an audience how people listened, where they were in their ups and down. And she always, always knew when they were tracking with her.

Damon was tracking with her. It was a strange feeling, lording over this wounded lion in a cage. Ironic how he brought the bravery out of her.

"You know what it is like to have everything ripped away from you, and to be all alone."

"If you are not going to let me out, then go away." Damon pulled off his shirt to reveal his muscled torso, gleaming with sweat. He bunched it up under his head and lay across the floor, stretched out on his side.

He was kicking her out?

"I have had a long day," he added.

Elena watched a bright bead of sweat dribble down over the curve of his bicep, pausing at the lowest point to gleam and fatten. Then it plunked down onto his chest. Twinges kicked up in her belly as it continued downward, traversing the muscles of his chest. She had the impulse to go in there, to rest her hand on his hot, slick skin. Good lord, here was this man, like a wild, wounded animal in a cage, and she was all kicked up about him.

A real letch, that was what she was.

"Maybe it serves me right, you here. I have been feeling things are off. Eerie somehow. I didn't listen to that." Elena softened her voice to a whisper, trying to hide the gloomy feeling trying to climb her throat. The hell if she would cry. Especially not in front of him. "If you could hold off on telling him. Give me a few days to get things in order and get a running start, and then you can tell him and collect your money. That would work, right?"

A spell of silence widened out between them. Then Damon said, "Elena, if you have an instinct to leave, you don't have a few days. For that matter, if you think I'm John's guy, why are you here?"

Elena grabbed the bars. "I know. I don't know."

"Have you ever seen those flocks of little brown birds, the way the will all fly away at the least disturbance? Most of the time there is no danger. But that instinct, that is their protection, and it is as formidable as claws or teeth. That is how you need to be on the run. The second the instinct hits, you are out of there with whatever you are carrying. You don't wait until it is so obvious that a man in a cell in the basement of a hotel has to point it out to you. No, you fly."

"I'm not ready. I have nothing—"

"If you have two feet you are ready. And, while I'm giving you advice—really, up in front of audiences every night for two years? It is a miracle you haven't been found by this guy and his friends. It really is. If I ever write a book on how not to be on the run, yours would be the colour story. How not to be on the run, step one: find a job where you are performing in front of different people from across the country every night, for maximum exposure. Step two: wear a hat with a face-covering net to announce that you are in hiding."

"The hat again?"

"Did the Mikaelson brothers tell you that was a good idea? That hat?"

"No, it is Caroline's idea. It is a 1940s torch singer look—"

"No. It is a piss-poor disguise. Your best long-term solution is to fight like hell to get guest worker status somewhere like South Korea or Hong Kong. If I were you, I would get out of the country." He went on about establishing a guest worker identity. "Whatever you do, get out of here. Change your hair, start over. Guest worker status would let you move around without being at the mercy of others. How long until your passport expires?"

She bit her lip. How would he know her passport has expired?

"Come on. Don't you know when your passport will expire?"

Elena looked down. "It is expired, but I'm getting a new one next week."

"But your gut is telling you to go?"

"Yes."

Damon paused, softened his tone. "That means you don't have a week."

"I can't just run off this minute."

"Yes, you can."

"I need to get my money. It is all in a bank. Anyway, what about the point of view that I'm in more danger when I'm separated from the herd?"

"Separated from the herd?" Damon laughed his rich laugh.

"It is not funny."

"No, it is ridiculous. Even if it weren't ridiculous, I separated you from the herd pretty easily, didn't I? The herd." He spat the word out with derision. "Where did you get that idea?"

"The Mikaelson…"

"Ah, the Mikaelson." A smirk lit his face. "The Mikaelson," Damon said with gusto. "Newsflash, Elena. The Mikaelson brothers are holding a man in a cell in their basement. In chains. Not always a good sign, as far as trustworthiness goes."

"I know—I didn't think—"

"That they are dangerous?"

"I knew they weren't…upstanding, but they saved my ass. You don't know my step uncle. Not that I condone—"

"Leg shackles? And as long as I'm dispensing advice, Klaus Mikaelson is unbalanced. Be careful around him."

"How about you just make me understand why you were in my computer so I can let you out?"

"I wanted the recording."

"Why?"

"That is all you get. Unless you want me to make something up."

"I want a reason to believe you." Maybe there were other reasons to want the recording. Maybe Damon was investigating one of the conventioneers.

He shifted, seemed to move with difficulty.

"Are you bleeding?"

"No," Damon said. "I have shifted to the coagulation and infection stage. I'm running them concurrently."

"That is not funny."

"No, it is precise. Precision is often taken for humour—"

"Stop it. Just shut up," Elena whispered. She knew what it was like to be hurt and alone. He had to be a little bit scared. In all this filth and summer heat, infection really would set in. "Damn it." She grabbed the keys off the wall. She wouldn't have this, not in the name of protecting her. "You are out of here."

"What if I'm John's guy?"

Elena paused. "If I'm the kind of woman who is okay with something like this, then I don't deserve to be free from that son of a bitch."

She could feel Damon's eyes on her as she unlocked the cell door. With a deep breath she swung the door open and walked in, stood over him. "I don't want you hurting the Mikaelson brothers over this. Got it? I'm done with the violence. Promise."

"I will not hurt the Mikaelson."

Elena threw down the keys. "Don't you make me regret this."

"Thank you." Damon flipped through them. "And for what it is worth, I'm sorry."

"Just hurry up," she snapped. Maybe she was crazy to think he wasn't with John. She had come down to play on their connection, but the connection was playing on her.

Well, Elena was a woman who trusted connections. It had served her with Caroline.

Damon handed the keys back. "The leg iron key isn't on there."

"Damn," she said. "Klaus probably has it. Or maybe the guards. What do you think it looks like?"

"Oh, no, no, no, don't you dare try to get it yourself," Damon said. "I don't need a key."

"Beg to differ," Elena said.

Damon gazed up at her, all brutal beauty, like a god, brought down to earth and chained up. Yeah, even bruised and bloody, he was all that. Her heart pounded, and not from fear. She wanted to sink right down to him, to touch his skin, to feel his heat.

"What?" she breathed. Her voice sounded husky to her ears. Dimly Elena was aware that he hadn't said anything at all. "What?" she asked again.

The way Damon looked at her, it was like he knew. "Come here," he said.

Her pulse jumped. And like a crazy woman, Elena knelt down and touched his chest. She imagined she felt a slight tremor in him as she slid her palm over his slickened skin. "You feel hot." Surely an infection hadn't set in so fast.

Damon rose up on his knees and pushed his fingers into her hair. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch. He kissed her lightly on the lips, and she melted into the soft warmth of him.

"Damn it." Elena grabbed onto his arms and pressed against him, glorying in the feel of his hard cock at her belly, the curves of his muscles under her fingers, and the hungry roughness of his kiss that sent shivers all over her skin.

She gasped as Damon moved to her neck, soft kisses followed by a harsh stroke of his whiskers.

"I want to devour you," he breathed, all heat and desperation. "But you have to get out of here." When Damon pulled away he was holding two bobby pins. "You mind?"

"Seriously?" Elena narrowed her eyes. "You could have asked."

"I could have."

"You can open locks with those?"

"Most."

"Do it," she said. "Hurry."

"Not until you are gone. I don't want us seen leaving together. The Mikaelson brothers are dangerous, and not just to me. Lock the cage, replace the keys on the hook, and get out of here. I can take it from here."

"There is a back passage—"

"I have got ears. Concentrate on protecting yourself. My plan is a good one for you. Think about it."

"I understand," Elena said. "Thank you." She put her hand to his cheek, needing to touch him one last time.

Damon closed his eyes, as though it was too much.

Her cool touch was heaven on his burning skin.

"You are running a fever. It might be infection. Wait." Elena pulled a small bottle out of her purse. "This has anti-septic effect."

"Elena…"

"Don't move." Before Damon could stop her, she was inspecting where her bullet had grazed his arm. It was just a small burn. Impressive shooting, that. With gentle fingers, Elena began to apply the lotion. Her touch was tentative, serious. Breath rapid, brows drawn together in concentration. "Is this good?"

"Perfect. Thank you."

Elena moved to the cut on his eyebrow. It wasn't necessary, but she had shot him, so she needed to make up for it. A lot of agents got like that after a kill, needing to care for somebody or something.

And Damon liked her touching him.

"Don't advertise that you are going," Damon said. "You can write letters of thanks and goodbye when you are safe."

"Put out your legs, Professor Devil."

"I'm not Professor Devil," he retorted. "My name is Damon."

"Just put out your legs."

Damon shifted to sit so that his legs splayed forward. One last indulgence. The basement guards of the Grill Hotel weren't exactly high functioning.

Elena slid a finger under the large iron cuff, a whisper of sensation. "I can't believe they did this." She really did seem shocked by it. "They have been good to me, but I'm not okay with this."

"I will survive," Damon said.

It was Elena he worried about. He had the wild urge to drag her out of town himself, but that would be madness, because nothing was more important than getting the TZ. Next best thing: he could get Wes to put somebody low-level on her tail to protect her from afar. It was the least he could do.

What was more, Damon damn well planned to teach this John a lesson once the TZ was under control. How many Johns sat in Arkansas prisons? He would go visit the man himself and make it clear that his days of messing with Elena were over. He would take one of his Association brothers with him—Ric maybe. Somebody to stop him from assaulting John. Or what if John were to mysteriously die? Elena would feel so happy and free. He would find her and help her get her life back. He would find her in a day. Whoever her step uncle had searching for her, they weren't professionals.

Elena rambled about not liking the rust on the leg irons. His skin was raw, but he would be okay, she murmured. She would make sure he was okay. It was like a hallucination of bliss, being cared for by her. Damon closed his eyes and let himself rest in her care, just for a moment. He wanted very badly to kiss her.

He flashed again on the image of a medieval map, the known world in the centre.

Don't fall off the edge.

The far-off sound of a door. Footsteps.

"Hellbuckets," she whispered.

Damon gestured at the shadowed section of the wall. "Stand there. Go."

Elena melted into the shadows.

The footsteps slowed outside the cell, and then continued and faded off. A guard round.

Elena moved back to him.

"Five minutes until he comes back," Damon said. "It will be safe to leave right after."

"Timing it between TV shows."

No, Elena wasn't stupid at all. She moved to the other ankle, pupils dilated, cheeks suffused with pink. She talked tough, but she was all emotion: fear, desire. Everything was there in her eyes.

Eventually the footsteps came back. Again Elena slipped into the shadows.

She went back to him once the guard was gone. She knelt down. "You need water or something."

Damon reached up and took a strand of her hair, slid it between his fingers. "I don't need water."

There was a hitch in her breath.

Damon had become accustomed to playing women like instruments, but he wasn't playing Elena like an instrument any more than she was playing him. The music was playing them both now, and the chord between them vibrated with unresolved desire. He let go of her hair and set his hand lightly on her neck where her pulse drummed clear as day.

Her swallow appeared as an ephemeral swell of her throat. Damon slid his fingers down to the soft place where her swallow disappeared.

"What do you need?" Elena asked.

Damon would have atomized it with anyone else, visualizing the intermittent vibration of the vocal folds as Elena formed the words, the incessant movement of her tongue starting and stopping the airflow. But now there were just her eyes, her breath, and her lips. The feel of her speech.

The feel of another swallow.

"I don't need water," Damon said to her again.

He slid his fingers up and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Elena was all wild cat eyes and rapid breath, and God, his cock felt hard as granite. He would give up anything to have her again.

He would give up anything. This had to stop. "Go," Damon growled.

"Let me help you," Elena said.

"You have. You alerted me to a back way out. You gave me lock picks."

The side of her neck looked flushed where Damon had rubbed his whiskers against her, marking her. He liked the idea of something of him on her.

Damon liked it too much.

"Goodbye," he said. "And thank you." He went to work, bending one pin into a tension tool. He fashioned the other into his pick.

Elena stood. "What will you do now?"

Go with you, Damon wanted to say. He grabbed his shirt, pulling the damp thing back on. "It doesn't matter because you are getting the hell out of here, right?"

"But where will you go?"

"Classes resume at the University of Virginia soon. Somebody has to lecture the students on the wonder of words."

Damon inspected his face, unsure whether to take him seriously. Then she smiled. "Right." She scooped up the keys and stepped out of the cage. "Good luck, Professor Devil."

"ASAP, right? You are getting out of here ASAP…"

"Yes," Elena whispered. She exited the cage, hung the keys on the hook, and cracked the door, peering out right and left. Then she turned to him, waited wordlessly. Because there weren't words now.

A second later Elena slipped out the door.

Quickly Damon set to unlocking the cuffs. He had lied about letting her get to safety before he broke out. He would shadow her all the way out and protect her if she got caught, but he didn't want her to know. She would give him away if there was trouble.

Damon tried to concentrate on the internal geography of the lock, although he felt Elena still. Her hands on his skin.

Three more moves and the leg iron snapped open in an explosion of rust, which dotted the thick goo of the lotion Elena had applied. Her ridiculous lotion.

Damon got the other open and slipped out. He crept along, cringing at the noise Elena was making, even as she tried to be quiet.

Elena unnerved him. Unsettled him. No, that wasn't right. For once Damon couldn't come up with a precise word.

Her showing up, it was like a visit from an angel. He was lying there in the shadows beaten half out of his mind but it wasn't until she showed up that he felt anything. As though she drew something out of him.

No, that wasn't quite right.

Damon turned a corner, following Elena through a long stretch. The guard room was coming up. He could hear their TV.

Elena penetrated him. Pierced him. Pummelled him.

No, no. Not right. Things like beatings and pummelling he could stand. But when Elena was around, it all just meant more. There didn't seem to be a word for that.

Damon saw her up ahead, flattened against the wall just shy of the door to the guards' room. He smiled as she dropped to the floor and crawled past.

He followed, glancing in, surprised at just how many monitors they had going. He continued on after her, shadowing her all the way up to the next level. She took a hatch that led to the exterior. Probably set into a sidewalk.

Damon peeked out and watched her round the corner. As soon as she was home free, he slipped out himself and shut the hatch, letting it lock itself.

He straightened up against the wall, which felt cool against his burning skin, and his pulse sounded tinny in his ears. No, he didn't feel right, and he couldn't stop obsessing about Elena. It was bad—getting the TZ had to be everything. It was everything.

Words—he needed something wordy. The elusive word for what she did—he would work on that. Penetrated, pummelled.

Damon had discarded those. Pierced hadn't worked. He smiled as he pictured Elena crawling past the guard room with all its consoles.

And then he frowned.

Consoles. Video monitors. Surveillance. Of what? What were the guards monitoring?

Damn. It could be important.

He had been so out of it, so focused on her, he hadn't taken a hard look. Mistakes like that could get Associates killed.

His shivered in the heat. He was in no condition to go back in.

Nevertheless.

Damon knelt down and started the process of picking the lock in the sidewalk hatch.

Two minutes later he was peeking into the guards' room. They were still watching their portable TV. Still drinking coffee.

But that was not what interested him. It was the dozen or so flat screen monitors. Each monitor was divided into nine sections showing different rooms of the hotel. People having sex. People talking on the phone. The restaurant, the lobby. A group of arms dealers playing cards in a suite.

The top floors.

He squinted at an icon on one of the monitors. Mute. They were making recordings.

Damon stiffened against the wall outside the door.

And smiled.

The fox had found the henhouse.

Naughty of the Mikaelson brothers to be recording. But such recordings would be valuable to dealers who wanted an edge in negotiations. Even more valuable to Jazzman.

And most valuable of all to Damon. Bright energy coursed through him; a feverish eureka. He couldn't believe his luck.

He looked at the clock. He had thirty-five minutes, if they kept to their usual schedule of rounds. Quickly he headed out.


	8. Chapter 8

The Mystic Palace Hotel stood two streets north of the Grill Hotel. Damon tucked in his shirt and smoothed his hair as he strolled in through the main doors. No doubt he looked as bad as he felt, but getting through the lobby would be a game of attitude, not appearance.

He felt the clerks' eyes on him as he stabbed the elevator button with a flourish, spine straight and proud.

A minute later he was knocking at room 508. The door opened.

"Nice night for a visit," Damon grated.

"Clears the mind." Ric clasped his shoulders, pulled him in, and slammed the door with his foot. "God dammit," he said, settling Damon onto the couch.

Just by the way Ric said it, Damon knew: they had thought he was dead. "Surprise," he whispered.

"You look like hell," Ric said.

"I try. Fix me up," Damon said. "I'm going back in. I have ears in there now."

"Here's to ears—attached to your goddamn head." Ric grabbed the first aid kit and brought it over to where Damon sat.

"I will take one of everything," Damon said.

"What happened?"

Damon launched into a rundown of the night, stopping only to detail his symptoms for Ric—hot, cold. Lack of hunger, lack of focus. Some dizziness. High emotions. He detailed his plan—they needed to buy, threaten, or drug the guards so he could copy the video and audio files.

Ric frowned. "We can try to break that hotel network."

"You can try," Damon said, "but if you start pulling video and audio files, somebody is going to notice. That is a lot of bandwidth."

Ric contemplated his words.

"That is why I'm going back in," Damon said. "I can review the files and make copies. All these dealers' faces and voices—it is a gold mine. Send me in with one of those thumb drives," Damon said. "One of your thumb drives with that Linux compression program."

Ric was already at his laptop. He tapped a few keys. "Got it. I have made some tweaks—I think you will be pleased. It will still take time."

"Do we still have an Associate in the kitchen?" Damon asked.

"Dishwasher," Ric said. "But she is only on at night."

"The night guards drink coffee," Damon said. "It comes from the kitchen. We need her to dope it up enough to put them to sleep. You think she can do that?"

"Count on it," Ric inspected Damon's ankle. "The guards will be out cold tomorrow night. We will see about the day guards. What is all this sticky stuff?"

"Anti-septic hand lotion."

Ric sniffed. "The Mikaelson brothers rough you up and put lotion on your ankles? What the hell is that?"

"It was Elena who put it on."

"Elena?"

"The singer."

Ric raised his eyebrows. "So you got past the emotionally manipulative songs."

Damon gave him a warning look.

Ric smiled. "How far past?"

"None of your business," Damon said.

"But Damon, you always kiss and tell." Ric rolled up the cuff of his silky lavender shirt. "We live for your escapades."

It was true. Damon usually made wry little stories out of his sexual encounters. Not so with Elena.

"Did the two of you have some fun together?" Ric asked.

"That is enough," Damon growled.

Ric raised his hands. "Sorry. You haven't bothered to keep the details to yourself for ten years."

"I'm bothering now."

Ric grabbed the rubbing alcohol and some cotton.

"Not too much," Damon said. "I can't go back down there smelling like a pharmacy."

Ric's eye darkened with concern. "He shouldn't go back in there at all. We have a way in and out now. Let's use it."

"We can't," Damon said. "If I escape, it could spook Jazzman and the Mikaelson brothers. They could shut down the recording or even move the auction. They don't know what I'm right now—let's keep it that way."

Ric stuck a needle in Damon's arm. "You will feel like hell for a while. At least you will be resting down there. I will get you water. You'd better be up to date with tetanus."

"You are bossy, aren't you?"

Ric smiled wryly.

"What?" Damon asked.

"I have news," Ric said. "We have identified the biometric security package on the TZ. They are using voice printing."

"What? Voice is a joke."

"It is next generation voice printing," Ric said. "I will send you the docs. It works on ratios of frequencies and ratios of the voice's volume—something like that. Over time spans of milliseconds."

Damon smiled. "So they worked out the kinks."

"Can you beat it?"

"With the right tools and the right sample." He let himself relax for the first time in what felt like days as Ric ran down the details. If Damon could get a decent recording of Jazzman's voice, he could override the weapon's controls. Surely he could get Jazzman's voice from the hotel recordings.

It was all coming together.

Ric gave him the thumb drive. "You have somewhere to hide this?"

"Yup." Damon pocketed it. "I have 12 minutes to get back. Anything else?"

"A nerve centre for recordings. In the basement," Ric said. "It is convenient."

"Yes."

Ric dabbed something onto Damon's eyebrow, frowning. "Your Joseph Silas persona would get stitches for this. He would have the best of medical care. A scar here could erode your cover."

Damon thought about his Joseph Silas cover eroding. What if it was blown completely? He would have to rest. He imagined himself in a little cabin somewhere, fussing with phonemes on a sunny porch. Putzing around in a garden. But no, that was not how it would go. If his Joseph Silas cover was blown, he would have to stop playing him.

The thought saddened him.

"You go cool your heels," Rics said. "Tomorrow night the guards will be drugged. I will send word if you have a window sooner than that. I need to call Wes." He stuffed in his earpiece.

Damon stood. "One last thing. Elena has a step uncle named John. Sounds like he is doing time in a Federal Correctional Complex in Arkansas. I want his file. I have to go."

"I will check him out," Ric said. "We got your back on this." Damon nodded. Ric always had his back.

"Jazzman is going down," Damon said.

Seven minutes later, Damon was back in his lonely cage. It was six in the morning. The guard shift would likely switch around seven.

He curled up on his side with one cheek cooling on the concrete floor, wondering what Elena was doing. Packing, hopefully. If she thought John's men were coming, she needed to trust that. It was good that she was leaving.

What was more, the Jazzman affair could get bloody.

Damon would get some sleep over the daylight hours. Once things quieted down, maybe after midnight, he would get to the recording console and figure out if Jazzman had arrived. He would endure anything to identify Jazzman and stop the auction. To save people from dying senseless, fiery deaths. To stop the pain.

His sleep was full of tortured dreams of trying to save his mom and dad and Stefan and Rose. She had lit up his world with her dark brown eyes and music. He had loved her with a passion that sometimes bewildered him.

Damon was back in that dark, smoky jungle, holding that clump of scalp and hair with the barrette still attached. Finding the stripes pattern of his mother's polyester slacks melted onto skin. He had recognized them all by bits.

Suddenly he was back pulling the hand from the wreckage, thinking it was attached to a body, but it came too easily. It was burnt near the thumb, wrist stained with dried blood, tendons hanging down like wet yarn. He'd had the impulse to throw it in horror, but he couldn't. It weighed as much as a tennis shoe. He couldn't get over that, somehow.

Another man tried to take the hand from him. "Señor," the man had whispered, easing the hand from Damon's grip. "Señor. Por favor."

It was too late; the hand had seared into his soul.

Later, he dreamed of a smooth weight on his cheekbone, crushing his skull.

Damon tried to shake it off, but the weight only pressed harder. It was as if he was trapped under something. He dreamt he was under the twisted metal of the train car, and there were hands everywhere.

He tried again to move his head. The weight moved with him, alive. It rolled his head under it.

That was when Damon awoke. He kept his eyes closed but he was awake.

The sensation was real. It was a boot. On his head.

He hoped he hadn't been struggling too much; it didn't do to betray fear or confusion. Slowly he opened his eyes.

Finn removed his boot, smiling. He held a briefcase Damon didn't like the looks of.

"Good morning," Damon said jovially, because Finn would want him scared. Finn was that kind of man.

Finn said nothing in reply. That was protocol; take all the control away. He simply set the case in the corner, well beyond Damon's reach, and opened it. Lots of metal in there. Knives. Syringes.

"I'm afraid you have gotten my room service order mixed up, my good fellow," Damon said. "I ordered the stir fry with prawns."

Three daytime guards entered the cell, one bearing a chair, the other ropes. They set the chair near him and muscled him in roughly, even though Damon didn't put up a fight. He just let it happen. Finn had the physical control, but Damon had the psychological control. He had language.

Still, it was hardly fortuitous that the crazy brother had shown up. Where were Klaus and Elijah Mikaelson? Finn had been the most violent when they had first put him down there; if Klaus and Elijah hadn't intervened, Finn would have injured him quite gravely.

So why send Finn? Unless they hadn't sent him.

"Not to insult the chef," Damon continued, eyeing the case, "But this doesn't look half as delicious."

The guards tightened the knots and slipped nervously away.

Finn put on a set of brass knuckles. Then, quite unceremoniously, he bashed Damon on the side of the head. Pain cracked through Damon's skull and lights danced in his line of vision.

"Why did you want the recording of the show?" Finn demanded. "Why are you really here?"

And so it began.

One of Damon's tricks with torture and pain was to tell himself that it had already happened, that it was already reality, that nothing could be done that hadn't already happened. It made things easier.

And in truth, everything had happened to Damon already. He had died back on that train in every way that mattered.

Finn pulled off Damon's shoes, then grabbed one of the small toes. He had pliers. Unceremoniously, Finn ripped off the toenail. Pain flared hot from his foot to his brain. Damon kept his face neutral all through it. Sometimes pain was his friend because it shoved something new into his mind, blotting out the image of the hand. The ubiquitous hand, connected to nothing.

Finn worked a thin blade under Damon's other large toenail. Too much pain now. Things were getting bloody.

Finn watched his eyes.

Damon employed the yogic breathing he had learned during the wilderness training Wes had sent him to after the bombing. Those months of training in martial arts, weapons, and mental control had been painful and punishing and so wildly irresponsible, it had nearly destroyed him.

And it had saved his life. Wes and the Association had saved his life.

"Did somebody send you?" Finn demanded.

"No, I happened on your establishment myself, although I must say, I hope you are sterilizing your instruments. I have heard of too many pedicure and manicure places with unsafe practices."

An angry tendon jumped on Finn's neck.

"And I can't say I'm sold on the red. Haven't you heard? Pastels are back in this season."

Finn kept on. Question after question. Damon concentrated on the words, and when that stopped working, he focused on the sounds, the way Finnmanipulated air flow and air pressure and resonance to produce different sounds, larynx to lips.

Damon felt his resistance thinning, though. He could give Finn a story for temporary relief, but it was a bad precedent to set. The questioning continued. Damon reminded himself that sounds were nothing but physics and biology. Pain was messages in the brain. Nothing meant anything.

And deep down, Damon was with Elena.

He relived the way she had come to him in the night like a kind of angel. Oh, she definitely was the type of girl his former self would have fallen for. He pictured the care in her eyes as she touched his wounds. He felt back to the way she had pressed against him as they had made love. All those years of empty sex, and there she was, a defiant miracle. She had accused him of being a dragon guarding his own damn pile of rubble. You are so full of shit, Professor Devil.

She would be aware of the possible meanings for the nickname she had given him—they didn't even have to discuss it for him to know that. Devil as a verb, a truncation of bedevil, as in, he devils a person rather well. Or devil in him meaning a deep reservoir of darkness best hidden. And then there was the way she had exploited that come here once she got a sense of its effect on him. Her up on that bed. Come here. Come here.

Damon groaned aloud when he realized what he was doing—going to a happy place. Such an amateur method of enduring pain.

So embarrassing.

"You ready to talk?" Finn demanded.

"Oh, no, that groan wasn't for you. I was thinking about something else."

Pain bit into his toe as Finn shoved in the blade.

More yogic breathing. More words.

Happy places and sunshine and love and all that made you vulnerable; they gave your opponents something to take away. Good Lord, Elena was more dangerous to him than Finn Mikaelson himself. He laughed.

"What is so funny?" Finn growled. He stood over Damon, holding the blade to Damon's ear now. Damon experienced a rush of fear. His ears were his stock in trade. But he couldn't show it. He wouldn't.

"It is not a matter of funny so much as absurdity."

Finn scowled.

"Never mind, Finn. Funny will do."

Finn hit him in the ribs with the metal knuckles. Damon realized here that the injuries Finn was giving him wouldn't be visible beneath clothes.

So the brothers didn't know Finn was there. Not a good sign.

Another blow to the ribs.

Damon went again and again to the feel of her hair against his fingers. He couldn't stop it now that he had started. He went back to the way her lips tasted, and how it felt to be cared for by her, to make love to her. Those beautiful eyes, and her gentle touch, like a flower of pain.

x x x

 _Richmond_

John Gilbert held his mobile phone so tightly, the tips of his fingers turned white as frost. "Imagine my surprise when Conor told me about the naked man. In Elena's room." He kept his voice calm. "Were you planning on informing me? Because it seems to me that I may never have found out if it wasn't for Conor's email."

The Mikaelson brothers could not make him talk. But I will make him sing, Conor had emailed. He will be sorry for being in her room.

"Of course you would have found out," Finn said simply. "We are holding him for you."

"You and Conor were supposed to keep men away from her," John said. "Yet a man was in her room, naked, so…" He paused there. It was good to let your people fill in the blanks—it strengthened your messages.

The Mikaelson brothers wouldn't say what the man was doing there. Elena wouldn't tell, Finn had informed him. No doubt because they hadn't asked.

John would be relieved not to have to depend on Conor and Finn for their lax attitude.

Finn speculated that the man was possibly a fan. Wanting her music.

A fan.

"Do I seem like a fool to you?" John asked. "With this timing? The man was investigating the auction."

Finn protested—worried, no doubt, that John might change venues. John wouldn't be changing venues, though.

"Elena probably caught something incidental on one of her recordings," John said. "Or observed something key that she typed into her journal. She is quite the little observer, as you may have noticed."

Finn had noticed. Well, that was something.

John had learned only too late that Elena had been using her observation skills on him, collecting information for the FBI. He had rescued her and her brother from abject poverty and that was his thanks. Two years he had sat in that cell because of her. Whenever he thought of her spying on him, fingers of anger would crawl through him and he would want to thrash something, but he never did. You didn't want the other prisoners to see you losing control. So he would just sit there with that cold energy crawling through him.

"Conor told me Elena was talking about leaving," John said to Finn. "I don't have to tell you how I will feel if she is not there for me when I arrive."

Finn assured him that Elena didn't have a valid passport, and she wouldn't be able to empty her bank account until Monday. She would not be leaving.

Good. John arrived late Sunday. Less than two days.

"Make sure of it." John hung up. They had managed to keep her there for two years. He could trust them to keep her until Sunday night.

Trevor had suggested having Elena killed back when her betrayal with the FBI had come to light. Trevor didn't understand—Elena belonged to John. He was the one who found her and polished her up; he needed to be the one to punish her. It had to be him she begged. Every look of fear and every instance of collapse would be for him alone. He needed to personally and thoroughly break her until she would accept anything and everything with gratitude—the kiss, the cock, the fist. He would permeate her every pore, her every breath, her every word. He would possess her so thoroughly this time, there would be no running.

Elena might resist him at first, but he would have a zero-tolerance attitude for that. He had been too lax the first time; that had been his mistake.

This time around, he would start off with shock and awe; at the first sign of resistance, he would simply grab the hammer, pin her down, and smash out her upper and lower front teeth. Then he would clamp her jaw shut and fuck her throat.

A little trick he learned in prison. Nothing broke a person faster than getting their mouth transformed into a 24-hour-a-day-access fuckhole. A psychologist could probably explain why that was, but John just knew it worked, and it would work on Elena.

Later, when Elena accepted that compliance was her only option, he would buy her dental implants. The TZ-5 money could buy her the best in the world. Beautiful new dental implants would be a carrot for her. The carrot and the hammer. Shock and jaw.

His body clenched as he imagined her spreading her legs for another man. He was glad the man had turned out to be a liar. It was important for her to see that other men would only use her.

Trevor had no idea who the man was. Trevor had arrived home from Mystic Falls just hours ago. According to the information he had, Elena was basically alone—Trevor swore to it.

John would kill the man all the same. He didn't care who he was; even if the man was Association, it was too late for them to stop him now—the TZ was already in place. That was one of the perks of having such a versatile weapon at your disposal. Let the entire Association storm the hotel. His buyers would welcome the demo.

He threw in his pants and his hat. Sexy white lingerie for Elena.

Trevor came in with John's boots, shined up for the trip. "You will feel better when you see her again."

"That makes one of us," John said, throwing in the hammer. He hadn't had the luxury of a hammer in prison. That was prison, always improvising.

He supposed there was a chance Elena would show remorse and give herself sweetly over, but he didn't dare hope for that; it was a recipe for unhappiness. Having to use the hammer made him sad. "Doesn't take much to break a docile horse. It is the wild ones where it means something," he said, more for himself than Trevor.

John used to enjoy getting into her journal at night while she slept to see what she had written. From the day he first came across her, he had gotten a kick out of how she captured things in words, but she never once wrote about him.

It is how he knew he never really had her.

Sometimes when they would have a good day together he would feel confident that she would write in her journal about him. She never did.

John imagined how her eyes would look when he appeared in her room at the Grill Hotel. They would grow big as saucers with a look of surprise that would slowly die. If only she would be still and sweet for him, things would be okay.

He forced his mind off that line of thinking and checked his watch. Flight 5891 to Narita was scheduled to depart that night. He would handle his business in Tokyo, and he would be in Mystic Falls late Sunday.

x x

 _MYSTIC FALLS_

Elena looked down at her suitcase, paralysed with indecision. Paralysed, yet shaky. Not the best combo on the menu.

The Mikaelson brothers would have found the cell empty by now. What if they got the notion she had helped Damonl?

She hadn't gone back to the Grill Hotel, but she couldn't hide all day.

And what if she had made a mistake? It was awful of the Mikaelson to hurt him and chain him up down there, but was it equally awful for her to let him out? He had promised he wouldn't go after the Mikaelson brothers, but what if he had been lying?

Damn. Damn. Damn

She grabbed a handful of panties and threw them in. Going through the motions of packing, but how could she leave without a valid passport or money?

Elena collapsed on the bed.

What had she done?

But she would do it again, that was the crazy thing. She had let him out of there with glee. No, that wasn't the precise word. She loved that Damon always went for a precise word.

Elena would do it again with a sense of privilege.

It was so crazy. Damon had screwed her and invaded her privacy. And he carried three guns. He didn't work for John, but obviously he wasn't a boy scout.

Still, you had to listen to your gut when you were on the run—Damon was right about that. Technically, he hadn't lied to her once. And he was right about a lot, even the dragon. In a way, that meant more to her than the rest. And he had that thing with words. In fact, he really did seem like a man who would teach at the university.

Damon had thought she should take off ASAP, like one of those brown birds. Well, she would take off. As soon as she got her money out of the bank. And she needed to cut and dye her hair.

The doorbell rang.

Elena jumped nearly out of her skin.

A voice: "Elena?"

Elijah.

She froze.

Had he discovered her part in Damon's escape? What if Jesse had said something? She stared at the balcony, feeling like she was in a dream. A three-story leap. Too far.

"Are you okay, Elena?"

Elijah didn't sound angry. In fact, he sounded concern.

"One sec." Elena shoved her suitcase under her bed. "Hold on." She ran downstairs, went to the door and opened it. "Hi."

Elijah smiled. "It is past noon. I hope I didn't wake you…"

"I had my headphones on."

Elijah came into the house. "I just wanted to let you know, you have nothing to fear from your visitor."

Nothing to fear? What did that mean? "Ah," she said. "What happened?"

He shrugged. "He is willing to play along. A businessman, just as I expected."

Elena nodded, trying to look relieved. "Good. Wow." How could he not know Damon was gone?

Elijah smiled. "Nothing more to fear, okay?"

"Well!" she said, way too energetically. "Thank you. I really do appreciate it."

Elijah hesitated. There was something more. "I'm confident this is the safest place for you," he said, "but I understand you want to be ready for anything. So I came to tell you, I will give you some extra cash. Once you have renewed your passport, you can leave Mystic Falls."

"Really?"

He looked away. "When I reflected on our conversation, I understood that you felt trapped. And then last night's visitor frightened you, so it may not be a bad idea for you to find another place to settle down. Have you thought about where you will go?"

Elena shrugged. "Not really. But I want to move away far away from Richmond."

"On Monday, Caroline will go to your bank with you and extract some funds. One your passport has been renewed, you are free to go. There is no place safer for you than with us, but we don't want you to feel trapped."

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You are welcome," he said. "You are my friend."

Elena smiled back. "I know. Klaus and you have done a lot for me."

"Are you going to tell Jeremy you are leaving?"

"I will once everything is ready."

Elijah looked sad. "I'm going to miss you, Elena."

Elena hesitated. "Elijah, you are a great guy and I like you, as a friend."

"I know." Elijah shrugged. "But I can't stop myself. These things happen."

"My life is a mess." Elena sighed. "You should never have got involved with someone like me."

"I know what I want."

Elena shook her head. There wasn't much she could say. "Face it, Elijah. We are better off being friends."

"I want you, Elena," Elijah said gently. "I don't think I will ever stop wanting you."

"At least you are honest with me," Elena said quietly. "I'm so sick of lies and secrets."

Elijah gave her a fleeting smile. "Nearly full house tonight at the Grill. Rest up. We need your outstanding performance tonight." With that he left.

Elena sank onto the sofa. What in the hell? Why would Elijah say she was safe if Damon escaped?

Nothing made sense.

Though a renewed passport and extra cash would make leaving easier. A couple more days. What would two days matter? Or should she flee like Damon said? The Mikaelson brothers were far more dangerous than she'd imagined, but did that justify leaving with no passport and barely any money? They had never been dangerous to her.

And what had happened with Damon?

Her brother Jeremy would know what to do. She checked her email for the umpteenth time.

Still nothing.

Was he even getting her emails? Jeremy had set up a secret account to email her with under a fake name, and he accessed it from a coffee shop only. They had been so careful.

Elena sent him a quick message—I need your advice ASAP. I need to know you are there! Jeremy had gone through a phase of distrusting Caroline and the Mikaelson brothers, but lately he had been all about her staying in the safety of Mystic Falls. What would he say when she told him what the Mikaelson did to Damon?

Then she got a horrible thought: what if they had caught Damon trying to escape? What if he was dead?

Her heart pounded. She had to know. With that she left her house and rushed to the Grill Hotel. She found Jesse at his post near the door of the lobby.

"Hey," Elena said. "What is new?"

"No scuttlebutt," Jesse said.

Elena smiled. She had taught him that word. He liked funny English words, and they got him good tips from Americans and Canadians. "Have you heard anything regarding the downstairs guest?"

Jesse twisted his lips.

"What?"

"The staffs are nervous," Jesse said.

Elena felt the air go out of her. "Why?"

"Because he targeted you," Jesse said, like it should be obvious. "Also, we thought they would turn him over to the police today, but he is still down there."

"Still down there?" Hadn't the hairpins worked? "Are you sure? Did you see him?"

"No, but someone was asked to deliver an extra lunch for him an hour ago. And Finn was with the man all morning. It's something serious."

A chill came over her. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Klaus and Elijah were running around angry. At Finn. Up and down several times." He nodded at the front desk. "Don't tell April and Violet. They are uncomfortable that a man should be held for so long."

"Right," Elena said.

Jesse's face darkened suddenly. He was looking over her shoulder.

Elena turned to see Caroline coming up behind her. "Elena!"

Caroline wore a floral-printed dress, and her blonde hair was up in a princess do. "Have you had lunch?"

Elena smoothed her T-shirt. "No."

"Café. Now." Caroline hooked her arm in Elena's. "Sorry, Jesse, I'm taking her."

Elena threw Jesse an apologetic smile over her shoulder as Caroline pulled her to the hotel cafe.

"Did you get some sleep?" Caroline asked. "How are you?"

"Freaked," Elena said as they settled in to their usual table.

"I bet." Caroline signalled for ice teas.

Caroline wouldn't like that she had snuck down, but she needed to know what the Mikaelson brothers were up to. "There is something you need to know," Elena said.

"What?"

Just then, the waiter arrived and they ordered their usual—burgers and coleslaws.

Caroline bent her head in once he left. "Elijah told you about the money, right?"

"Yes."

"Elijah is willing to give you some extra cash. But you can't leave." Caroline reached across the table and grabbed her hand. "I will die if you leave."

"I don't want to leave, but Caroline—this guy—"

"He is not going to give you trouble. Got it?" Caroline raised her brows in the way she did when she would accept no argument. "Everything is fine with him."

"I don't want to seem ungrateful, but detaining a man against his will? I didn't want him to be hurt, and you are not going to like this, but last night—"

"Elena. Sometimes life isn't so black and white. I get how it seems to you—they are holding this guy. But they are trying to protect you."

"I know."

They fell silent as the waiter delivered their ice teas.

Caroline lowered her voice. "I get it, it seems wrong to you. The Mikaelson brothers play by different rules. And don't forget, Klaus and Elijah are the good guys in this." She sat back. "I can't think of anybody better to deal with some thug of John's than Klaus and Elijah. These guys—" she flung a hand in the direction of the lobby. "A show of power. It is what they understand."

"Meaning, some brutality is okay?"

"You want guards and plenty of cash, but no violence, nothing to offend your sensibilities. There is no such thing as a Disney criminal, Elena. Klaus and Elijah are here for you, just as they are for me. Trust that. Your visitor is perfectly comfortable, in case you are wondering. You need to stop worrying."

Elena knew when she was being handled by Caroline. She also knew that a man chained in a cell wasn't comfortable. She looked down at her tea, re-thinking her big idea of confessing to Caroline that she had been down there. "Fine. Here is my bottom line," she said. "I don't think he is some thug of John's, and I want him released."

Caroline snorted. "Are you serious?"

"I think he is not a threat to me."

Caroline smiled. "Did you take a degree in FBI profiling when I wasn't looking?"

"I don't like him being held and I want him released. It is not right. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he actually does work at the university."

"The university. Seriously? Why would he have three guns? Why would he be in your computer? Why would he tell Finn he was working for John?"

Elena straightened. "He confessed he was working for John?"

"Yeah. He told Finn. They are nearly at a deal."

Elena stirred her tea thinking of the man down there. Things got simple when you were on the run. And things like truth and connection got important fast.

Somebody was lying. Who?

"It was the first thing Finn did—check the university story." Caroline squeezed a lemon into her tea. "Leave it."

"You know for a fact he checked it. The university story. And you are absolutely sure he doesn't work there."

"I'm absolutely sure that he doesn't work there," Caroline said. "I know you pity him. But this guy is dangerous."

No good would come of saying yes to that question. "I want him released."

"It is not your call. The man entered a guest's room under false pretences and was stealing something. It is out of your hands."

"The whole reason they kept him was on my behalf."

Caroline gave her a look. "Let this be, Elena. It is out of our hands. The man is fine. They will make a deal, and that's that."

Elena dumped sugar into her tea, heart racing. Caroline was a master at stonewalling disgruntled guests. Elena didn't appreciate being on the other end of that.

At all.

She was thankful when their food arrived. She ate quickly and left, telling Caroline she needed to practice a new song.

Back up in her room, she sat on her bed, all jumpy and paranoid. It was getting to be like the old days, not sure who she could trust. Eyes everywhere.

Just then, she spied Damon's business card on the floor. She picked it up and uncrumpled it. Joseph Silas, Ph.D. A number was on the bottom.

What would happen if she called it? Who would answer?

Elena grabbed her phone and punched it in. It rang a good ten times followed by a series of clicks—the phone transferring to another phone. A woman's voice: "University of Virginia."

She asked for Joseph Silas.

Hold please. Again the ringing. The operator came back. "He is not there." She told her to try back. No, she didn't know when Joseph would be in. His hours and class schedule were on the website.

The website. Hello. How had she not thought to Google him?

She went to her laptop and put in Joseph Silas and linguistics. There was a Professor Joseph Silas on the university website.

Well, she could go around with business cards saying she was Lady Gaga; that wouldn't make her Lady Gaga.

Then she found an image on the university website.

It was a low-res, black-and-white photo, but it looked a whole lot like the guy down in the dungeon. He had same dark hair except it was shorter. The same face shape—a sort of masculine diamond; a movie star face shape. Pleasing. Perfect.

You couldn't tell for certain if the Damon in the photo had grey-blue eyes, but the glint was right—that mix of arrogant humour and lively curiosity. Even in a basement cell in Mystic Falls, he'd had that glint. But she couldn't be sure from just the picture. Could the man in the basement have chosen this identity because they were lookalikes?

Caroline had told her flat out that he wasn't a teacher at the university. That she knew it for a fact. That there was proof. Damon said that he did teach there.

Who was lying?

The answer to that question seemed massively important. It would tell her everything about who to trust.

According to the website, Joseph was teaching in a weekend program.

She would get the truth. She was done being handled. Doner than done.

Caroline had lied. Or did Finn lie to her? But then, what was the proof?

And if the Mikaelson brothers were lying about this, what else?

Elena thought about calling the police about Damon, but how could she be sure the Mikaelson brothers didn't own the cops the way John had?

Fear crawled up her neck. Cut off from her brother. Unable to trust the Mikaelson. Alone in this far-off place.

Except for Damon.

It was to think of Damon as her sole ally in this place, considering what he'd done, but he had never technically lied to her. And he seemed to care about her safety. They were both in trouble. Both with somebody to run from. She highly doubted he would return to finish teaching the class.

It was there that she got the idea to break him out.

It was Saturday. Without access to the bank, she didn't have enough money to go on the run—she didn't even have enough for an air ticket, but if she broke Damon out, he would help her—she felt sure of it. He had owed her. It was the perfect solution.

A good eight hours before she could even think about going down.

There was no doubt she had to get him out and she would. It would be dangerous but it made her excited to think about. And just to see him.

She wouldn't be leaving without him this time.


	9. Chapter 9

Shane sat in the lobby reading the Mystic Falls Post. Whenever he utilized a newspaper as a prop, he thought of his father, who would sometimes joke around by putting a hole in whatever newspaper he was reading and looking through it at young Shane. An eye in the newspaper. Hilarity ensued.

These days, scrolling through a smartphone was more naturalistic, and it allowed you to reposition yourself, as if for better reception or light. But sometimes Shane genuinely wanted to read the paper. What was more, he was feeling happy and confident about finding Damon Salvatore now that he had a photo. And a name.

Hitters coming up in the business disdained anything scholarly, as if ignorance was impressive. As if the mind had nothing to do with the gun. Fine with Shane. It meant less serious competition.

He had gotten his research chops in college, and he sharpened them every chance he could.

It was thanks to his research chops that he now had the identity of Damon Salvatore aka Dr Joseph Silas, PhD.

Although the name he had used with the police after the San Juliano train bombing was Damon Salvatore. At which point his identity had split in two—Damon and Joseph. He now had current photographs of him, courtesy of his good friend, Google.

It was beautiful.

Damon was in Mystic Falls for a mission. When he was not in a mission, he was Professor Silas, the linguistic. That would be how he hunted. Speech. Words. Shane almost hated to kill him.

Almost.

And he had seen the man just the day before, wandering through the lobby. Right there. Damon hadn't come through for a day or so, but h would be back. Meanwhile, Shane would start discreetly questioning the staff. Somebody would be able to point him in the right direction.

It was as good as over. Simple point and shoot now.

x x x

Elena stopped at the drugstore on the way to the Grill Hotel and picked out a tall bottle of water and some hydrogen peroxide for Damon's wounds, then she grabbed a protein bar, a chocolate bar, and a pack of paper clips. In the movies guys always used paperclips to pick locks. If those didn't work, she would damn well find the leg iron keys.

She grabbed a box of condoms. Just in case.

Ten minutes later she was pushing through the revolving door of the Grill Hotel, only to spot Klaus and Elijah standing at the desk, looking sternly in her direction.

Damn.

The two of them beelined over to her and pulled her into the lobby waiting area. "Where were you?" Elijah asked. "I called your house but there was no answer."

"Shopping." Elena lifted her bag in answer, then quickly lowered it when she thought about what she had in there. "What is wrong?"

"We were worried," Klaus said. "Considering your visitor."

"Right," she said, her blood racing. "It is unbelievable."

Elijah seemed to be studying her bag a little too closely; Elena looked down and was horrified to realize you could see through it. The bottle of hydrogen peroxide was partly visible…as was the side of the condom box.

Casually, she twisted the bag by the handle, sure they could read her nervousness. "I just wanted…chocolate and stuff."

"You know you can always ask the kitchen for anything," Klaus said. He was the smartest of the brothers according to Caroline. "You shouldn't be alone. Just for now."

Her heart pounded. Were they being…too intense? She swallowed. "You are probably right."

"If you go out again, I would be happy to escort you," Elijah said.

"You guys have done so much," she said. "I don't want to drag you all over."

"It is no problem," Elijah said.

"Even if it is bra shopping?"

This got them tongue-tied. She put all the sunniness she could muster into her smile as she began to back away. "Just kidding. I need to go back to the room to practise a few new songs for tonight."

Elena could not get into the elevator fast enough. With shaky hands she stabbed the button for the third floor five times. She tried to keep her sunny face but her heart was banging clear out of her chest, and it seemed like forever until the doors closed.

She just needed to last through the night until she could grab Damon and get out. It was dangerous to set off without her passport and money, but a partner would make all the difference. She wouldn't be alone.

Her show went off normally, aside from her nervousness, which she felt like everybody could see.

At midnight, Elena finished packing up as much of her life as she could into her sturdy new backpack: expired passport, toiletries, money, the condoms, pain killers and whatever else she could think of.

She slipped into the lobby and up to the front desk, thankful no Mikaelson brothers were around. A few patrons sat around in the lobby. The night guards stood watch at the door. Would they let her out? She decided to sneak out the pool exit.

She chatted with April until she saw her chance to grab the key to the liquor hatch.

Minutes later she was down on LL2, slipping past the guards' room. They were asleep when she passed, thank goodness. She headed deeper in, and quietly let herself into the cell room. There he was, stretched out on his side on the far end of his cage, hair tousled. They had given him a brown shirt.

"Damon!" Elena whispered.

Damon sat up—stiffly.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "I couldn't believe when I heard you were still here. I should have waited to make sure the hairpins worked out." She grabbed the keys from the hook.

Damon frowned. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" Elena did her best to project cheerful confidence even though Damon didn't seem at all happy to see her. "I brought paperclips. Assorted sizes. Those will work better than the hairpins, right?" She unlocked the cage.

"You are supposed to be gone. You need to be gone, dammit!"

"Lucky for you I'm not. We have to get you out of here. We will help each other."

"No. Elena…" Damon sat awkwardly, feet tucked behind him. "I'm fine."

"Right. I don't think so." She entered the gloomy cage, knelt in front of him, and started digging in her pack.

"You have to get out of here."

"I'm not leaving without you."

Damon grabbed her wrist. "Go. I don't need your help. You understand?"

"Save it for someone who might believe it." Elena yanked her hand away and pulled out the paperclips. "We need to hurry, so don't fight me on this. Everybody is lying to me but you. So, you are getting out whether you want it or not." She extracted two of the best-looking paperclips and extended them to him on her palm. "Start your picking, Professor Devil," she whispered.

Damon stared down at them for a long time, saying nothing.

"I'm not leaving you here again. Nothing you say will change that."

A bit more time passed, and then Damon looked up at her. And her blood froze. He wore that empty smile he'd had on when she held him at gunpoint. The smile that put a wall between them. "Unbelievable," he said.

"What?" Elena asked, hating the waver in her voice.

"I use you in every way possible," Damon began smoothly. "And then I decide to give you one decent bit of advice about being on the run and you can't quite go with it, can you? Here you are, bothering me and dabbling in things you don't understand. Trying to help me when I neither need nor want your help. You really are a fool."

Elena paused only a moment. "I get it." She began to unbend a paperclip. "You don't want me in danger or something, so you are being jerky. Chivalry noted and rejected."

"Is that what I'm doing?"

"I think it is."

She felt his eyes on her. "And this is the expert assessment from the woman who thinks a cornpone hee-haw singing show is a capital way to hide?"

His words were a punch in the gut. "Excuse me?"

"Cornpone hee-haw singing show," he repeated. "It is rather precise, don't you think? Hardly needs a supporting cast."

"I know what you are doing," Elena said.

"You don't know the first thing about me."

"I know you think words are your bitch. Just some shell game for you to play. Making things real that aren't, or putting a new face on things you don't like. But guess what?" Elena fixed Damon with a good glare. They were close enough to kiss, but that wasn't in the air now. "When a man is chained up in a cage like a circus tiger, then it is the right thing to help him. And doing the right thing is always the right thing. And I will tell you something else: when a dog gets run over by a car, it is a goddamn tragedy, not an exercise in phonemes. So take the damn paperclip and unlock yourself."

Damon laughed that beautiful laugh.

"You think it is funny?"

"Oh, it is not funny so much as delicious," he said.

She didn't like his tone. "Hurry up, we don't have time."

"I'm not in a hurry."

She worked on unbending the other paperclip. "You are coming with me."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Why not? You think you can't get out of those leg cuffs with the paperclip? 'Because if you can't, the guards are asleep right now. I will go in and find the leg keys."

"Don't," Damon growled. "Do you have any idea what Finn would do to you if he found you down here?"

A chill went over Elena. Elijah wouldn't hurt her, but Finn…Damon had a point about Finn. "Get picking then, Professor Devil." She held the paperclip out to him, willing her hand not to shake. What if she had been wrong about everything? What if she was really and truly alone?

Damon just looked at it. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Then I'm not, either." Elena set it on the ground in front of him and stood, pulling the candy bar from her backpack. Casual as could be, she slung the pack over her shoulder, leaned against the bars, tore off the wrapper, and took a bite. "Mmm."

Damon watched her eat with a strange expression—she couldn't tell if it was hunger or loathing.

Please, Elena thought. Don't make me go alone.

She took another bite.

x x x

She was killing him. Just like that first night.

Elena had called herself cowardly, but she was nothing less than a warrior, standing over him, waiting for him to free himself even though she was scared shitless. Elena and her supplies and her attitude and her unshakeable moral compass. She thrived on emotion. Connection.

Damon wished he could tell her the truth—he was a spy, and all he wanted was to get back to the console room before the drugged guards woke up.

He couldn't. The truth would endanger both of them.

The farther she got from him and the hotel, the safer she would be.

Damon swallowed, steeled himself. He had to make her run.

Do it, he told himself.

"Question, Elena. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why I never asked you to go to the police?"

"I figure the Mikaelson brothers are buddies with them."

Damon closed his eyes. He wanted to move his feet into a position that wouldn't make his toes feel like they were on fire, but he couldn't let her see them. The last thing he needed was her pity.

"Or maybe I have more to fear from the law than from the Mikaelson brothers," he said.

Elena simply took another bite. "We both need to get out of here. You are coming with me."

"How do you know I'm not a killer?" Damon asked.

"Because I know."

He gave her a cold smile. "It is sad. You are pretty, but sometimes you don't use your brain properly."

Elena just looked down at him. She had to be nervous. "I'm not buying what you are selling, Damon. I'm done being fooled by people."

Damon didn't have to fool her—that was the grim truth. He had died in that train. He had lost everything that made him human.

"Come here," he said.

Elena frowned.

"Come here." Before she could move away, Damon lunged up on his knees, grabbed her wrists, and yanked her down to him. Her candy bar flew.

"Hey!" she tried to pull away.

Damon forced himself to tighten his grip, hating that he might be hurting her. Everything in him raged in protest. "Look in my eyes. Ask me if I have killed."

Elena struggled. "Let me go."

He gave her a shake. "Ask me. You say I'm not a liar. Don't you want to know?"

He could see fear in her eyes. "Please—"

"Ask me!"

Elena glared. "Have you?"

"Yes. I have killed fourteen men. Eight by gunshot and three by slitting their jugulars. Did you know that slicing a man's neck takes roughly the same amount of pressure as slicing into a papaya? I bet you didn't know that."

Elena's eyes widened and Damon could see the fear in her eyes. He could see what he had become reflected there; he was a hunter, a killer, a tool of the Association.

"I know what you are thinking, Elena. That's only eleven. And you would be right. There was another man I killed by smashing his skull with a twenty-pound free weight. Then there was the time I jammed a wooden spear clear through a man's neck. I whittled the thing myself. I even shot a man in the back of the head once."

"I don't believe you," she whispered, glancing at the door.

"I think you do."

The man he had shot in the back of the head had been dying painfully. It had been a mercy killing, but the others hadn't been about mercy.

Damon transferred her wrists to one hand and grabbed her hair into a ponytail, forcing her to look into his eyes and see the truth of his words, the bleakness in his soul. It made him want to die.

"Let me go," Elena whispered in a small voice.

He twisted his fist in her hair, using it to control her head like reins on a horse. She drove a knee into his thigh, sending bolts of pain up and down him.

He barely noticed. He couldn't be deeper in hell.

"Please," she whispered.

Damon twisted harder, pulse racing. "There was a whole stretch of my life—weeks on end—when I sat awake at night fantasizing about killing a man by ripping out his throat with my teeth." The truth. It was how he had thought to kill Mero, way back when he was imprisoned in the terrorist's compound. "I visualized it in my mind just like an athlete would—the way I would angle my head for the best canine penetration."

Her eyes changed. Turning away from him finally.

"I thought that would be poetic for somebody as linguistically inclined as myself," he continued. "What do you think?"

Elena tried to push away.

He held her more tightly. "I could do it to you right now."

She stiffened as he kissed her throat. She would find it creepy. Well, she should. This brave, beautiful woman—she should think twice before asking a man like him to run with her. Before opening her heart to him. Before clawing down his defences. She finally found her devil in the well.

"You are right about words being my bitch. About my using them to cover unpleasantness. It is how I fooled you."

Pain shot through his groin as her knee connected with his balls. Damon let her go and Elena sprung away.

"Go to hell." She picked up her pack and backed out of the cell, keeping a wary eye on him. She pulled the door shut. "You can go to hell."

Damon was grateful for her anger. Grateful it was over.

Elena hung the keys up on the nail. Even from where he sat, he could see her hands shaking. She left without a backward glance.

Damon quickly unlocked his leg irons and stole out after her, shadowing her through the tunnels, past the drugged guards, and all the way up to the hatch, just to make sure she didn't get caught on her way out.

He quickly unlocked the hatch after Elena closed it, peeking out, watching her walk down the side street, shoulders slumped.

He spotted a van on the corner. That was where the Associate's admin would be, ready to tail her. Leave, he pleaded in his mind. Get away from this place.

Everything he had said to her would be worth it if she would get away from the menace of her step uncle and the looming danger with Jazzman. And stopped visiting him!

Elena reached the main road and turned out of sight. Damon lowered the hatch, locked it, and made his way back, toes like fire.

She had wanted him to leave with her. It was like having a first class plane ticket somewhere beautiful that he could never use. But he could take it out and look at it sometimes, run his finger over the flight number, the seat number and think, what if.

Damon entered the console room and sat next to a drugged guard, grateful for the weight off his feet. Beyond the toes, he had an egg of a bump where Finn had smashed the side of his head, possible concussion, bruised and possibly broken ribs, and the cut eyebrow. And her gunshot graze. But at least his fever was gone, thanks to Ric's shot.

All in all, he was holding up. He didn't like to think what condition he would be in if Klaus hadn't arrived to pull Finn off him.

Damon checked the files. Still compressing and downloading. He had been downloading the files when he saw her coming—a mile off, of course. He'd had to scramble back into his cage and wait for her. He'd had to do that two times over the course of the night when people walked through. He'd lain in his cell, holding his breath both times, sure somebody would try to wake the guards.

Nobody had.

He clicked through the video feeds until he spotted her at the front desk, talking to the night clerks. She looked agitated. Did she know how her eyes gave her away? The Mikaelson brothers would see her growing distrust there.

"Leave!" Damon whispered at the screen.

He would find a way to protect her if things got ugly with Jazzman, but she would be far safer if she would leave. She probably had everything she needed in that little backpack.

Elena stepped onto the lobby elevator. Damon switched cameras to the elevator interior. The defeated look on her face broke his heart.

"I can't go with you," he whispered to the screen. "I can't let more people die."

She hit the button for the third floor. Back to her room.

"No," he whispered. "Don't go back to the room!"

Elena got off on the third floor. He watched until the elevators doors shut behind her. There were no cameras in the staff wing—not much money in blackmailing maids.

He didn't need a camera to know she was in for the night.

Damon told himself she would leave tomorrow, in the daytime. Even that would be hard for her. It was why she wanted him with her. She had trusted him and he threw it in her face. God, it had been years since Damon had felt so wrecked over a woman.

A decade, to be precise.

Forcing his mind back onto the mission, he slipped a phone from a guard's pocket and called the Associates at the Mystic Palace Hotel with an update. It felt good to talk to his guys. They were restless—heaven knew what their room service bill was coming to. They were planning an excursion to record the few arms dealers who weren't at the Grill Hotel. They would play the recordings for him over the phone tomorrow night if he hadn't found Jazzman by then.

Good.

Damon erased his tracks, slipped the phone back, and started reviewing the audio files. The dealers at lunch, the dealers in the elevator, the dealers in the sauna. The Indian gentleman who sat in the lobby for hours on end, vaguely familiar but his speech patterns were nothing like Jazzman's. One by one, he ruled out the guests of the Grill Hotel

It took just two hours for him to conclude that Jazzman hadn't yet arrived.

Another hour for compressing and downloading all of the relevant video and audio. Damon didn't need that to find Jazzman, but he wanted everything he could get for a database he had in mind. Photos of arms dealers along with extended speech samples from each would be a goldmine for the Association. Or, he would turn it into one. He would create software that would help identify speakers by their voices, and he would do a diction program, too, to help identify the authors of emails and manifestos.

There was no such thing as a linguistic fingerprint, but in a closed group—a hundred of the world's most notorious arms dealers, for example—you could get pretty close. He would create rules for each individual. The technology tools he envisioned would be a hands-down intelligence coup, the kind of thing he could spend years on, and exactly what h would be doing if his old life hadn't ended.

The thought of his old life filled Damon with sadness. His emotions were bubbling too close to the surface these days. Sleep—he needed sleep. He stole a few of the seaweed crackers out of the bag on the table. Sleep and a real meal, that was all he needed.

x x x

Elena watered Amy for the last time. She really had meant to plant her somewhere decent, but there wasn't time. She had to get out. It was Sunday—the banks were closed. She would be vulnerable without money or a passport, but she would survive. She had two feet.

She had rented a car. The rental car would take all her money, but she needed to be a brown bird. Elena thought about her plan. Her first stop would be Atlanta and then she would go to Alabama. After that she would carry on until she reached Texas. She had to find Jeremy. She wasn't going to leave Jeremy behind.

She rubbed her wrists. She had always been able to count on Caroline, but her friend had lied to her face.

 _I'm absolutely sure that he doesn't work there. He is perfectly comfortable._

Lies.

Was Caroline just protecting Klaus? Covering for Klaus? Still, Elena couldn't have it. Didn't Caroline understand that Elena depended on her with her life?

Her thoughts went to Damon.

Damon hadn't lied. His words had felt like dark confessions.

She looked back at Amy. If she gave the plant to April, that would show she was leaving. She needed to be a brown bird. The walls were closing in on her. The whole city.

A knock at her door. "Elena!"

Elena stiffened. Caroline.

Three hours until she had to be at the rental company to get the car. She decided that it would be smart to hang out with Caroline now. They would have tea or something, and then Elena would take off. She would write a letter to Caroline later on. Explain. Maybe get some answers.

"Just a sec." She arranged things to look regular.

"I have a bone to pick with you," Caroline said from the other side of the door. She sounded mad. Or was that fake mad? Sometimes she couldn't tell with Caroline. Elena steeled herself and opened up to find Caroline standing there with her hands on her hips. Fake mad.

Elena managed a smile. "What's up?"

"Lobby. Now."

Nervously Elena searched Caroline's face. "What is in the lobby?"

"A surprise," Caroline said.

It was too late to get out of it unless she wanted to do something totally dramatic, like run. That would accomplish nothing.

Her thoughts went to Damon. Damon wouldn't crack; he would go along with it. Hell, he wouldn't just go, he would go with a joke and an easy smile, confident he could handle whatever came up.

"You know how I feel about surprises," Elena said smoothly, grabbing her purse and following her ex-friend into the elevator. "You are being very mysterious," she said as the doors slid shut.

Caroline raised one eyebrow. "I'm not the only one."

"You think I'm being mysterious?"

"I think you have been very mysterious."

What did that mean? Did Caroline know about her visits to LL2?

Elena smoothed her hands over her simple black skirt, which she had paired with a simple dark top. Comfy, unmemorable traveling clothes. She planned to put on glasses and a hat when she finally set off. Not the net hat, though. Damon had a point—it was a hat to disguise.

"What is the surprise?" Elena asked.

"You will see." Caroline watched the floor numbers flash on and off as if it was the most fascinating thing ever. Maybe it was something good, Elena told herself. Maybe the cash was ready a day early.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the lobby. Caroline hooked her arm in Elena's. "Come on."

A group of men congregated in the corner of the lobby. Elena couldn't see their faces, but they had the dark feel of the convention guys. The influx of shady men all week had added tension to the atmosphere, a silent hum that ratcheted up her nerves.

Caroline pulled her past them and up to the front desk where April and Violet stood.

"Is there a special delivery for Elena?" Caroline asked April.

"There is a very special delivery for her," April said solemnly.

Violet nodded. "Yes."

Everybody was acting weird. Elena gripped the counter. "What is it?" Whatever it was, good or bad, she wanted to get it over with.

April reached below the desk; she seemed to be fumbling with something.

Jesse wandered over, expression blank, just as April pulled up a cupcake with a candle on it. "Happy Belated Birthday, Elena."

"Oh, my God," Elena clapped her hand onto her heart, relief blasting through her.

Caroline grinned. "You sneak. I can't believe you didn't say anything!"

"You guys!" Elena felt so relieved. Her birthday. "How did you know?"

"How could I forget?" Caroline said. "We had drinks at one of the bars last year. Many drinks, if I recall."

"Go. Do it." Jesse pointed at the cupcake. "Make a wish, even though it is a belated birthday."

Caroline had remembered her birthday.

Elena made a wish for her brother to be safe and blew out the candles.

Caroline clapped and smiled at April. "Anything else down there?"

April pulled up a wrapped box. "From all of us," she said. "But it was Caroline's idea."

Elena unwrapped the box and pulled up a necklace—a tiny silver dolphin on a delicate chain. "Oh, thank you!" She and Caroline had admired it together a month ago. She hugged Caroline and then Jesse, and then April and Violet over the counter. She would miss her friends so much.

"Turn." Elena turned around and Caroline clasped the necklace at the back of her neck. "Why didn't you say anything yesterday? I could tell something was bothering you. It was your birthday and you should be having a celebration."

"Well, you know…" She turned back to Caroline, eyeing her significantly.

She saw when Caroline realized. "Oh. Well." Caroline gave a defiant shrug. "Happy belated birthday, sister."

Elena loved Caroline in that moment. Caroline and her sassy energy. Elena would miss her.

"Thank you." Elena patted the necklace, feeling like a traitor. Sneaking out after Caroline had helped her for so long. But how could she trust her when she had outright lied?

If she wasn't on the run for her life, it wouldn't be such a big thing.

"I'm glad you like the present," Jesse said.

Elena smiled. "Yes, I like it."

April split the cupcake in fifths.

Elena would write them all letters once she was safe. These people had been so good to her.

New guests were arriving. The staff flew into action.

"You want to watch a movie?" Caroline asked.

"I'm kind of tired," Elena said, wandering back in the direction of the elevator with her friend. Caroline insisted on riding up with her.

Back in her room, Elena checked her email while Caroline made them both tea.

Elena's heart lifted when she saw Jeremy's secret email name in her inbox. "He got back to me!" Elena said.

Caroline came over. "I told you he would email."

"Thank goodness."

Caroline watched her expectantly as she read.

"A nice, long letter," Elena mumbled, reading. He apologized for missing her birthday—he'd had the flu, but he was much better, and she should email right back with her question. He told her what a comfort it was that the Mikaelson brothers had her back. A comfort to know she was safe in Mystic Falls. He went on about politics, current events, and something about the auto repair shop that he had told her before.

The further she read, the more worried Elena felt.

"What is wrong?"

"Something is up with Jeremy He has been weird all month, but he is weirder now."

Caroline raised her brows. "Weirder? How?"

"It is hard to explain." Elena reread the letter. "Weirdly cheerful. Talking about politics. Telling me stupid stuff he has already told me. Like he forgot he told me."

"People sometimes do that."

"Right. Still." Elena wrapped her arms around her chest. "Email sucks. You can't see a person's face. You can't feel them."

"May I?"

Elena handed over the laptop.

Caroline read the email for herself. "This is way nicer than what Klaus ever wrote when I was away," she said after a while.

Elena snorted. She could hardly imagine Klaus chatting on email, even though he loved Caroline and she loved him back.

"Maybe he was in a hurry. It is a nice letter."

"Too nice. Too…something," Elena said. "What if he is sick? He would be stupidly cheerful like this."

Caroline rolled her eyes and handed the computer back. "Honey," she said. "After we go to the bank tomorrow, I'm taking you for a manicure. You are way too overwrought."

Was she being overwrought? Something wrong with Jeremy. Two hours until she could get the car. Walls closing in. The Mikaelson brothers turning out violent. Caroline was lying—to protect Klaus, maybe, but still lying. Though their lies were more dangerous to Damon than to her.

Elena looked at the letter again. Damon would be able to tell her what was up. He saw more in words than what was there. That was his job.

She looked up to see Caroline examining her. "Honey," Caroline said. "I have a recommendation."

"What?"

"I know you said you didn't want to, but…" She pulled a small box from her purse. A DVD. The notebook, Elena's favourite.

"Oh," Elena said. "I can't."

Caroline stuck out her bottom lip. "Why not?"

Elena was starting to forget about why it was so important to be a brown bird. What could another day hurt? If she held out just one more day she could leave with extra money. And maybe make Damon look at Jeremy's emails.

She sat back. "What the hell. Put it in."


	10. Chapter 10

The guards who came on Sunday morning at six a.m. were inconveniently awake and alert the entire day, although they did bring Damon a burger around dinner time, which he gobbled up hungrily. A number of people tramped past, but happily, Finn didn't show up.

The night guards came on at ten.

Things calmed at midnight. Soon after, the kitchen boy delivered the hopefully-drugged coffees. Even if Damon hadn't heard him bring them past, he would have smelled the aroma. He waited twenty minutes, then freed himself and headed back to the console room, pleased to see the guards flopped back in their chairs. They would be out for hours.

He set the video feeds to the basement entrances so that he would know if anybody was coming and started compressing and downloading the files from the day. While that was happening, he started to search the video to see if Elena had left. She was absent from the lobby the whole morning.

Good.

Damon was just allowing himself to hope she had taken his advice and gotten out of there when the camera captured her heading across the lobby floor with Caroline Forbes.

They stopped at the front desk to talk with the clerks. Damon groaned when the cupcake was brought out.

They were celebrating her birthday.

Then the gift came out.

"No!" he whispered at the screen. "Don't get sentimental on me, Elena!" A lost cause. A little birthday fete would mean the world to Elena. The feeling of being buoyed by the love of other people. Of belonging. A sense of family. She would let it colour her judgment.

The little group laughed. Elena was saying something funny; he didn't have sound, but he found himself smiling all the same. She felt happy with these people, especially the girls behind the desk. He remembered what that was like, to live in a place where people were your meaning and your security. He watched the little group as an exile might, longing sharp as a knife.

Damon fast forwarded the lobby tapes.

The next time the cameras picked her up she was heading through the lobby with her guitar, ready to do her show. She stopped to talk with Elijah. Elijah would see right through those fake smiles.

There were no cameras in the courtyard, but he fast-forwarded the lobby feed until he saw Elena heading back up, presumably to her room.

What was she doing? Damon thought.

Preparing for her flight, of course. Getting her ducks in a row—passport, money. Which is what got people killed. H would do his best to protect her if things got bloody with Jazzman, but this step uncle and his men were the wild cards. Quickly, he got back to work. The sooner he identified Jazzman, the sooner he could get out of his cell and help Elena.

He started sampling the speech of the newly arrived guests. Many of them had ended up in the mezzanine lounge. Thorne really was the social butterfly; two of his Hangman pals had shown up, and they argued about soccer with the Finns. Thorne punched one of the men. A fight ensued.

Thorne would lead Hangman someday—everyone knew it—and then things would really get wild. Wes would surely have him taken out by then.

The restaurant recordings revealed that one of the Saudis had some of Jazzman's speech characteristics, especially with his articles, but Jazzman switched p's and b's in an unusual way that ruled the Saudi out. What was more, this Saudi didn't have facility enough with English to be Jazzman. Changing up idioms for effect—like saying "vim and vitriol" for "vim and vigour"—was for more fluent English speakers.

He ruled out some of the newly arrived Somalis, too, as well as a contingent from Canada and some of the New Tong out of Texas.

At two in the morning, real time, Damon spotted Elena heading into the lobby.

She had twisted her thick, long hair into a bun. Another one of her sad little disguises. With her prim, dark shirt and skirt she looked like she was going for a clichéd librarian look, but then there were those black pantyhose.

She settled herself down at the community computers and got to work. She seemed to be printing something out. He touched the screen. The bigness and sweetness of his feelings for her made him uncomfortable and he thought to force his focus away from her, just to get back under control, but he found he didn't want to.

Activity in another sector finally distracted him. A small army of maids stripped the bedding off the bed in the honeymoon suite on the 17th floor. The bedding looked clean—why did they strip it off? Special request? Special treatment?

Damon's heart raced. Was Jazzman about to arrive?

A bottle of scotch was set out next to two lowball glasses. Two champagne flutes appeared. Flowers were brought in. Did Jazzman travel with a female companion?

New activity on the rooftop lounge, which was a kind of open air patio at one end of the sprawling roof. It had been unused all this time, but here in the middle of the night, a crew was hosing down the tiles and setting up the bar. White canopies, presumably for shade during the day, were unfurled under the moonlight. The far end of the roof was just a lot of open space but the crew was clearing off equipment and setting up lights around the perimeter. Landing lights. A helipad. That was where the weapon would go.

Damon sat up. Jazzman was on his way.

The rooftop bar. It was brilliant. If they got some live music going, it would be impossible to hear the negotiations. He glanced again at the honeymoon suite. It seemed a bit obvious for Jazzman to stay there, but Wes said Jazzman would want superior accommodations. Wes was always right about such things.

Wes also predicted that Jazzman would stash the codes and schematics somewhere in Mystic Falls as a kind of insurance policy before he sold the weapon. The buyer would get access to the information after Jazzman was safe.

But with this kind of surveillance, Damon would surely identify Jazzman before he made any deal. Once they had him, they would do what it took to retrieve the whole package: the weapon, the schematics, and the codes.

A door creaked. Somebody was coming in the back way.

Damon sprung up from his seat and hurried back to the cell room, trying to keep the pressure on the balls of his feet instead of his toes. He snicked the door shut and clapped the leg irons around his ankles.

Quiet steps approached.

Elena.

Damn.

Damon shut his eyes and lay down. The outer door opened and closed, but there was no clinking of keys being taken off the hook. She wouldn't be entering the cell. At least there was that.

"Back for more?" Damon said after he had sensed her standing there a while.

"I need your opinion on something. Your professional opinion. Since you are a linguistic, maybe you can draw conclusions about a person's mental state from his sentences and such..." Elena paused.

Damon opened his eyes. There she stood just outside the bars, clutching a sheaf of papers. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I just need your professional opinion. I'm worried about somebody and I have his emails here..." Her quiet words were laced with desperation, papers clutched to her chest. The emails had been written by somebody she loved. Not John, then.

That was Elena. A warrior for the people she cared about.

"If you valued my opinion you would be long gone," Damon said.

"Why do you care so much if I take your advice?"

"I need the people around me to do my bidding. It is in the killer job description."

"How about you just give me a professional goddamn opinion on something?"

A professional opinion. He would give her anything. He flashed again on the medieval map. She would pull him right off the edge of the world if he wasn't careful. "As you see, my business facilities in here are substandard. And you know what this means. Yet another star off for the Grill Hotel…"

"Shut up! God, I get that you don't want me around, okay? I need your help."

"I'm done helping you."

Elena clutched the sheaf, standing at the edge of the patch of light cast by the bulb over the door. "These are emails from my brother, Jeremy," she said in a small voice. "He has become…weird, and I'm worried about him. I want you to read between the lines like you do and tell me if you think he is depressed or in trouble, maybe hiding something, or just what you think."

Damon sighed as though bored, but really, he couldn't tear his gaze from her, because she was standing there with her emails and her despair and her pantyhose and he was half in love with her.

"I really need your help. I'm worried about my brother. I know there are software programmes that can analyse sentences…"

"I'm familiar with it. You have to run this on the computer," Damon said. "Compare it to a giant corpus. And make those comparative tables…"

"I'm pretty sure you can do it without."

"You have a lot of confidence in me, haven't you?" He eyed the sheaf. It would take him an hour just to read through, getting the lay of the land. A proper analysis would take even more time. Did she mean to come back down for the results later? Tomorrow night? Like hell he would give her an excuse to stay yet another day, and he had to get back to the console.

"Your professional opinion."

"I can give you my professional opinion this instant," he said. "My professional opinion is that you are being a fool. Here you are, sensing trouble, and you come down here asking me to analyse emails? Get out of my sight."

"Can't you just read these?" Damon knelt and slid the thick sheaf into his cage, watching him warily, as though he might break his chains and come right through the bars. "Just tell me if you think there is something wrong."

"Something is wrong."

"You have to look at the letters."

"No, I don't. You wouldn't be down here consulting with somebody like me if you didn't know in your heart that something was wrong. You want me to give you some comforting explanation—he is just a bit blue; his favourite team is doing poorly. Or, he has a hurt finger, so it is merely hard for him to type. Well, there isn't one. He is your brother; you don't need me to tell you when something is wrong." With his foot he shoved the papers back out, scattering them across the floor. "Furthermore, my professional opinion is that something in your environment tripped your instinct, but you are looking for excuses not to leave, because deep down, you can't bear to be alone. That is what will get you caught in the end."

Elena gathered up the papers.

"You are a wet dream for a killer like me," he continued, dying inside. "The kind of person I love to hunt."

Elena looked disgusted when she stood again. Good.

"You will be somebody's papaya very soon," he added.

She looked like she was about to cry. She muttered under her breath—a colourful insult, no doubt, then she stuffed the sheaf of papers down deep in the garbage pail and stormed out.

Relief swept through Damon. Surely Elena would leave now.

He shook off the leg irons—they hadn't been locked—and he let himself out of the cage. He grabbed the emails from the garbage on his way out. She had shoved them under some newspapers, but it was still conspicuous. He shadowed her up to the surface yet again. Even in his bare feet, it was painful to move so quickly.

When she was safely out, he brought the emails to the console room and hid them at the bottom of the office trash.

Nothing more was happening in the suite, but Elena appeared on the lobby feed, chatting with her friends at the front desk. At one point she moved behind the desk and discreetly returned the key. Trying to be sneaky, trying to keep them out of trouble. How had she lasted so damn long on the run?

Damon glanced at the trash can where he had buried the emails, hoping her brother was okay.

Focus.

Damon borrowed one of the drugged guard's phones and left a message with Ric about the activity in the honeymoon suite and the roof—the Association needed to get eyes on those areas from the outside if possible. After that, he went through the recordings, listening to the new arrivals speak and ruling them out. Three-thirty in the morning his downloads were done. Elena still hadn't left.

The vaguely familiar-looking Indian businessman lurked in the lobby, as usual. At one point he buttonholed the bellboy. It was out of range of audio, but money passed between them. The bellboy seemed animated, frightened. The man made a beeline to the elevator bank. Hit the down button. Either working out or hitting the business services room.

Damon turned his attention back to the honeymoon suite. Still nothing. His mind whirled as he flipped through the feeds. There was something he wasn't seeing. Something more.

What?

As a linguist and an Associate, Damon had always made his best discoveries when he had stepped away from a problem. He stood and stretched. Checked the guards' breathing. He rubbed his eyes. Finally his gaze fell upon the dustbin where he had stuffed Elena's sheaf of emails.

Why not?

He grabbed them and sat, riffling through. Emails in chronological order, all dated. He kept an eye on the consoles and set to work.

First he scanned over them as a group, getting a feel for the brother's language, looking at pronoun usage and various points of markedness. The writing in the early letters seemed quite balanced, the words of a man in control. Elena's brother cared a great deal for her.

There were bits of Elena's letters included at the ends of Jeremy's letters; these he read for context, though he found it difficult to stay analytical; he felt like he was falling into her words, her reality. She described the bustle of Mystic Falls in bright, fresh terms. Everything touched her—the weather, the architecture, the people she worked with. Her sense of humour came into full bloom with her brother, but her despair and her longing for connection was keenest here, too, and Damon had the uncanny feeling that he was touching her across time and space. Certain texts used to do that for him, give him the sense of camaraderie with another soul. He had thought that was gone from his life.

But this thing with Elena was more. Damon had gotten used to having nothing to lose, but she was pulling him back into the frightening, beautiful madness of caring. He thought about that pretty gleam in her eyes, but when you really looked, you got that they were the eyes of a rebel. She didn't accept the presented surface; she plunged her poet's fist right through.

Stop. Focus.

Damon forced himself to read on, and quickly decided that Elena had been right to feel uneasy. Jeremy sounded like a loving, conscientious brother in the earlier letters, but there'd been a shift about a month back. The later letters contained the right phrases—I love you, sis, for example, but it wasn't the same. He spread out the two batches of letters. On the right he had the before-the-shift group, on the left he put after-the-shift. He took out a pen.

Layout and sentence length were similar in the two groups, but the earlier batch doubled the question and exclamation marks, mirroring Elena's letters. The later ones didn't. He circled instances. He then turned his attention to the function words—meaningless helper words: will, and, up, or, etc. He quickly crossed them out in two random before samples, leaving only the lexical words, those that carried meaning.

Damon turned his attention to the after batch, striking out the function words. On comparison, he found that the lexical density after the shift was markedly lower.

Low lexical density often indicated deception.

Something else: receive was spelled correctly in the after letters, but not in the before letters.

But that wasn't the most troubling difference. There was a single space between sentences in the before-the-shift group; the after letters featured a double space between sentences. How had he not seen that right off? A double space was something somebody who attended school before the advent of word processors would use, or somebody who'd had an old-fashioned English teacher. It definitely wasn't a habit you changed one day; particularly not going from one to two spaces.

It was then Damon knew: the emails had been written by two different people. Elena had been emailing with an imposter for well over a month.

He went to the content. The earlier letters asked lots of questions. How are the M's treating you? Any sign of J? Are you getting any fresh air? Tell me your favour new food! The later letters were controlling: Stay put. You are so lucky to be in a safe haven. Such a comfort to know you are safe within those walls.

Was it that step uncle of hers? John? Except the man wouldn't have email access from prison. One thing was clear: the imposter wanted her to stay put—more and more urgently as time went on.

Somebody was coming for her. John or one of his men.

But no, no, no…there was something else, something about the sentence construction. The new writer was trying to mimic the brother, even going so far as to lift entire phrases, but Damon felt something else in the sentence rhythm. Something familiar.

Damn.

Damon went back over, scanning for a different set of markers now. In two separate instances, the new writer used the word that with proper nouns when no article was called for.

It was something Jazzman had done in the conference call. He had done it only twice, and yet…

Damon sat up and quickly riffled back through, focusing in on the packing material of the language. He found a certain construction—Would that you were here. Then, Would that I had a bike—construction that was rare among English speakers—fussy, even. Jazzman had used it and it was one of the things that had made Damon suspect Jazzman might be a native German speaker, or had perhaps learned English in a more formal setting. He found two more instances of it in after-the-shift emails. The rate at which the imposter used it well exceeded any corpus.

Could it be?

Elena had said John had entered prison just over two years ago.

Two and a half years ago, the TZ-5 had disappeared, along with whoever stole it.

Heart pounding, Damon went back to the date the imposter took up the correspondence. It was right around the time Jazzman had held the conference call announcing the auction.

Energy blazed through him the way it always did when he hit on an outrageous new theory.

Were Jazzman and John the same man?

Elena had told him John had cops who would do his bidding. Men working for him even from prison. Could the Mikaelson be among that group? Had he simply parked Elena with the Mikaelson until he could get out of prison? Had he arranged the auction using the name of Jazzman, and then killed her brother and taken over his email account?

Damon looked up at the honeymoon suite and his blood froze. Champagne in the ice bucket.

For John. For Jazzman. Two glasses.

Jazzman and Elena. The package.

Alarm swept through him like wildfire. He sprung up from his seat.

Elena.

If he was right, Elena was in grave danger. He had to get her out of there. Protect her. He couldn't sit around and wait. Anyway, if John was Jazzman, Elena could confirm it.

Damon stripped down to his T-shirt and stuffed his bloody brown shirt in the garbage. Gently and quickly as he could, he removed the largest guard's jacket and put it on. He took his utility belt, trying to keep his movements smooth—the drug would be wearing off soon. He grabbed a hat, tucking in his hair, wishing the Mikaelson had given their basement guards guns instead of just pepper spray and radios. Bare feet would be conspicuous as hell, but his toes were too wrecked for boots.

It was then he heard it—just a whisper of a movement down the hall. Too stealthy to be Elena. He looked at the monitors. The Indian businessman. Was he lost? What was he doing on LL2? When he caught the dull glint of a gun Damon realized where he had seen that face.

Shane. Just feet away.

No weapons. Too late to run. Damon stuffed his hair firmly and completely under the hat, pulled up his collar to cover his hairline, and took a seat, resting his head on the desk, face down, just like the other two guards. He forced himself to be perfectly still even though his every instinct drove him to tear out of there and get to Elena. Because he would die before he reached the street. Shane was a true pro, a man who had fought before he could walk, and he would be armed head to toe. Damon had nothing but pepper spray. And he was raised a scholar, not a killer. He had come to killing late.

Damon's heart pounded. He was unarmed against a superior killer. He needed luck. Surprise. Something.

He felt Shame come in and move past him. He peeked out the corner of his eye to see Shane standing over the guard without the jacket, Sig P229 with silencer in hand. Shane took hold of the guard's hair and yanked his head up, then let it bang down. It was a wonder the man didn't wake up. Lucky, too. Shane would kill the man if he woke up.

Shane picked up the coffee cup and sniffed, then put it back down.

Damon could follow the track of Shane's thoughts exactly. He had been to the empty cell. He would figure Damon had gotten the guards drugged so that he could escape. There was no reason for Shane to think Damon would stay. And his hair wasn't showing.

But there were only two coffee cups for three drugged guards. Anders would notice that. It would be even worse if he noticed Damon's bare feet. Damon wished he could move them deeper into the shadows under the desk, but he didn't dare.

His mind clouded with images of Elena, hurt and scared. The way her eyes would look. Elena running, caught. Beaten. Worse. He felt like a volcano was in him.

Tap.

Shane had discovered the video feeds.

Damon felt his body clench.

Tap.

Shane was using the feeds to determine where and when Damon left. Who he had been with.

Tap.

Tap tap.

Silence.

It began as a tickle of awareness. Maybe a subconscious realization that the keyboard taps had been too far apart that last time. A sense of stillness that hadn't been there before.

Tap.

Shane had noticed his feet.

Tap.

Damon's heart raced; he didn't need eyes in the back of his head to know when a gun was on him.

It was at that moment, that very moment, that one of the guards groaned. A chair squeaked. "Aao…aao…"

Damon slit his eyes enough to see Shane swinging the weapon around to the guard. He would shoot. He would shoot all three of them.

Damon yanked the pepper spray from his belt and exploded from his chair and right into Shane, spraying the assassin in the eyes and knocking his arm as a wild shot went off.

Shane coughed and gasped, blinded.

Damon grabbed Shane's arm and brought his knee up into the killer's elbow with crushing force. He heard the bone crack as the gun clattered to the floor.

Even blinded, even with a destroyed elbow, Shane kept coming. He landed a left-handed blow on Damon's throat—just a hair to the right and it would have been lethal.

Damon hit back, coughing, eyes watering from the spray, barely able to see or breathe himself.

Shane fell. Damon was on him with a final blow that knocked him out cold. Damon cuffed Shane's wrists to different metal fixtures and raced off with the man's Sig shoved into the utility belt, trying not to think too hard about the fact that he didn't finish Shane off.

He should have killed him, but something in him had shifted back in that cell, back when he had told Elena about the men he had killed. He hated the man he showed to her that night.

Two minutes later, Damon was slipping out onto the dark sidewalk, throat raw, eyes stinging from the pepper spray. He melted into the shadows to avoid a trio of drunks helping each other down the block, and then he picked the back gate padlock and crept through the pool area, sidestepping empty lounge chairs until he reached the pergola.

Stealth was key now; if Jazzman was on his way, the Mikaelson would be out and about with the guards on high alert.

Damon scaled the back of the hotel; not easy with each floor wider than the one below it. When he hit the third floor he began to move sideways, balcony to balcony, using the railings as monkey bars until he got to hers.

Her room was dark. He swung his legs over.

The patio table and chairs they had knocked down during the fight had been put back right. Elena had mentioned sitting on her porch in those emails to Jeremy. She needlepointed out there, and watched sunrises. She had made herself a life here. Of course it was hard to leave.

Damon picked the lock on her sliding door and slipped inside, shutting it quietly behind him, standing perfectly still as he let his eyes get used to the dark.

Elena slept on her stomach, sheets tangled around her legs and waist, her back a pale expanse of white undershirt, hair a dark mass to one side of her head. Face calm in sleep.

He needed to tell her about her brother and get her out.

Her brother.

He felt suddenly as if he was looking down at a version of himself the moment before his life went dark. There was a time when he would have given anything to go back to that blissful, ignorant before, to spend just one more minute there.

Elena stirred.

"Elena," Damon whispered—gently. It wouldn't do to alarm her.

Elena turned, reflexively pulling the sheets up around her, eyes wide.

Damon clapped a hand over her mouth before the scream could come out. "Shhh."

She tore at his fingers, kicking him. Confusion in her eyes. Fear.

No way could he carry her out of there; he needed her cooperating. "You are okay. Just don't scream."

She kept twisting.

He grabbed her wrist. "You are okay. I'm not here to hurt you."

She stilled, nostrils flaring, in and out, in and out.

"I'm taking away my hand," he said softly. Slowly he removed it.

Elena sucked in a breath, preparing to scream. He clapped it back on.

She tore at his fingers. He was suffocating her! He had escaped dressed as a guard and snuck into her room! She tried to bite him.

"Okay, I deserve this," Damon said. "What with the papaya bit and all."

Elena struggled and thrashed, but he was solid as a mountain. She stopped hitting him and brought a knee into his ribs.

"Oouch." He seemed to collapse a titch, but he didn't release her; instead he climbed over her further, straddling her, which prevented any more knees. "Sorry," he said.

Sorry? He was on her. Holding her down. Suffocating her. Her heart beat wildly.

"I'm here to help you, but you need to calm down."

Elena tried again for the rib but he had her legs and arms pinned.

"I read the emails," Damon said softly.

Elena glared at him, unsure what to do.

"One question. Shake your head yes or no."

She watched his cool blue eyes. Some part of her wanted him still. Some part of her liked him there on top of her. So screwed up.

Damonsucked in a ragged breath. "Did you ever hear John use the word vim with a word other than vigour?"

"Mmm!" She struggled against his hand. Was he crazy?

"Vim," Damon repeated, "unaccompanied by vigour. Vim and something else." Like that was the problem of the universe.

"Mmm!"

"I will know it if you are about to scream. Before you do," he warned.

"Mmm-mmm," the best okay she could manage.

He removed his hand.

"Get the hell off!" Elena tried to push off his heavy bulk. "You give me your answer on the letters or you get out of here. Because I'm not talking about John."

Damon didn't budge. "Think. Does he like to modify sayings?"

Elena stilled. How did he know?

"It is not a difficult question. Yes or no."

"Yeah, he used to change around sayings. He thought that was real clever. Why?"

"Did you ever notice his b's and p's sounding alike? And like shots. Panorama. Banana."

"Am I supposed to be impressed that you listened to a tape of John or something?"

His face darkened. "Does he ever over-explain and trail off with the word so. For example, This new blender is powerful. The best in its class, so…" He continued, "Or, I don't like tomatoes. They taste like hell, so…"

"What the hell?" Elena wriggled underneath him. "Get out." It was a nightmare, hearing John's talk coming out of Damon. "Get out."

"Did he take trips to Panama just before he went inside?"

Elena narrowed her eyes. "Yeah."

Damon got off her. "Get dressed. We are out of here."

She felt shaky. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"It is me or John," Damon said.

"John is in prison."

He tossed jeans at her. "I examined the emails. Do you know who you were emailing with? It didn't feel familiar?"

Ice crackled through her veins.

"It wasn't your brother," he said.

"Yes, it was."

"Not for the last five weeks. The change occurred about five weeks ago. Am I right?"

She hadn't told him that. "You are so full of it, Professor Devil…"

Damon spoke right over her. "Did you ever notice John's fondness for that as an intensifying article with proper nouns? For example, he will say That Elena drinks beer when he could just as easily say, Elena drinks beer. It is common to only 4% of the population. It occurred twice in recent emails from your brother. That actress is a whore. That politician will burn in hell."

No. Elena had known something was off, but…John? "They don't let prisoners email."

"No," he said. "They don't, do they?"

Every nerve on her skin prickled up. "You think John is out. No way, my brother would have found a way to warn me if…oh, my God!" Elena felt the blood drain from her whole entire soul. "My brother."

"Come on. I'm getting you out of here."

"No," she whispered as the world careened around her. "I know my own brother." Her eyes misted up. "It was my brother, he is just depressed or something."

"Did you notice how very, very badly he wanted to make sure you stayed put in the last few weeks? And the sentences. The music of the language."

"You are messing with me."

Damon grabbed her shoulders, looked into her eyes. "You feel language the way other people can't, Elena. It is why you showed me the emails. Would that we had Twisty-Kreme here. That is John's talk, not Jeremy's talk."

"Oh, my God." Elena shook out of his arms, feeling like she might throw up. John inside her brother's emails like a spider in her brain.

"He could be down there, Elena. In the lobby," he said.

Elena went to her dresser and pulled out her gun. "I know you are right. But that doesn't mean I suddenly trust you."

"Let's get out of here and you can decide on the trust part later. Grab what you need and let's go."

"He is not dead. I would know if my brother was dead." Elena shoved her wallet into her backpack along with her phone, her iPod. "Crap, I think I might throw up."

"Ignore it."

Her brother. She stuffed in her clothes from the day before.

"Put on your jeans, a dark shirt, and sneakers. Now," he said. She couldn't believe how calm he was. "What's John's full name?"

"John Lee Gilbert." Elena pulled on her clothes as Damon took out a phone and called somebody, mumbling something about John Lee Gilbert and Jazzman. She was glad for the icy cool Damon He was the ally she needed now. He would kill.

Another thought hit her and she spun around. "The Mikaelson brothers are on this."

"Most likely."

Caroline

Elena shoved on a shoe, mind whirling at the betrayal. She knew he was right. It was then she caught sight of his bare feet—they were red, crusted with something dark. "Oh, my God! Your feet!"

"It is nothing. Go. Other shoe."

She slammed on her other shoe. "All this time I have been like a bird in a cage. Like a stupid singing fool."

"Not like a stupid singing fool. Like a survivor."

"A survivor who sings songs where nobody know how to appreciate." She stood.

"Well, there's that."

Elena hauled off to hit him. Damoncaught her arm and yanked her up. The air felt thick and wild—at least to her. "Put everything out of your mind but doing what I say," he said calmly. He shoved her pack at her. There was still room in it, so she nestled Amy in and slung it over her shoulders. "Jeremy is not dead. I know you think so, but he is not."

Elena said nothing.

"Ready?" Like he didn't believe it.

A sound at the front—the doorknob jiggling, followed by the clink of keys.

With lightning speed, Damon moved across the room, shoved a chair under the knob, then grabbed her hand and pulled her out onto the porch, into the steamy heat of the night.

"Jump onto my back. Now."

Damon turned and offered his back. Elena did as he asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle.

A hiss of pain. "Avoid the ribs if possible."

Elena shifted her legs down. "Are you hurt?"

"Hold on. I'm climbing sideways."

Elena held on, trying not to look down as Damon climbed over the railing. A little wall jutted out between porches; she used to lean over and talk to April who resided next door, but she had never imagined traversing it. She clutched him harder as he straddled the wall. He grasped the railings on both sides before he swung them all the way over.

A pounding from the inside of her room. Trying to get in.

"Crap," Elena said as Damon scooted down and swung around the wall to the next porch, then to the next. Like the whole hotel was a jungle gym.

Sweat poured off her face, her palms. "You are getting slippery," she said.

"Just hold on," Damon said, moving like a monkey to the next porch.

"Where are we going?"

"The Mystic Palace," he panted, moving to the next porch. "I hear it is excellent. I understand there is not a leg iron in the place."

A gunshot blasted out. The sound was so loud, it almost rocked her right off his back.

"Ignore it," Damon whispered.

A man screamed, and then moaned. A chorus of street dogs set up barking.

"Damn." Elena clutched on harder.

"We are okay." Damon kept on. Senseless, muffled words came from the direction of her patio. He got them around to the next patio.

"Let's go in and run out the hall," she said.

"Bad idea." He straddled the next wall.

Bang. This bullet hit nearby. Damon sucked in a breath.

"They are shooting at us!"

"Not to kill. They are forcing us in."

"Damon! You are bleeding!"

He examined his arm when they got to the other side. "Ricochet spray. Skin deep." He climbed over the rail and let her off on a porch. Elena felt grateful for the solid surface. "Stay back." Damon leaned out and shot back.

"They know where we are, now." She gave him her gun and he tucked it into his waistband.

"That is why we have to go down. They won't expect it."

"It is three stories!"

"Just to the porch below."

"How?" The building was V-shape making going down as hard as going up.

"I will jump down. All you have to do is lower yourself and I will pull you in."

Damon hopped back to the outside of the rail and climbed down, so that he hung by his fingertips from the concrete slab that composed the floor of the porch. He began to swing, and then he disappeared. She heard the thud of his landing, then a voice. "Hang down and I will grab you. Hurry."

Elena scrambled over the rail and paused, fixated on the rocks and bushes below. A person would die, falling that far. And her hands were so sweaty!

"Hang down," Damon said. "You can do this. I will grab your legs."

Elena could hear voices inside over the neighbourhood dogs. Somebody pounding at the door. Other voices even nearer. Somebody had been sleeping in there. She crouched on the outside of the porch railing.

Shouts. A crash.

Elena wiped her hands on her shirt, then crouched on the outside of the bars and lowered her legs. She felt Damon's arms close around her knees. "All the way down," he said.

A deep voice. "Oh, no, you don't."

Elena jerked her gaze up to meet John's angry eyes. He leaned over the railing. She gasped, grip frozen on the bars.

"Elena." His warning tone. Her stomach clenched and curdled as he clapped his hands around her wrists, fingers like iron vices.

"No!"

"Yes," he growled, face hard under his dark flat-top.

Elena began to struggle, but guards appeared on either side of him. They grabbed her arms and started pulling her up, right out of Damon's grip.

"No!" She twisted and squirmed. "Damon! No!" They pulled her all the way over the rail and onto the porch. John looped an arm around her neck.

Movement out of the corner of her eye. She saw fingertips on the edge of the slab.

Damon.

Strong hands clamped the railing. Forearms bulged with muscles as Damon's head appeared. He was heaving himself up.

One of the guards levelled a gun at him.

"Damon, watch out!" Elena screamed, trying to get at the guard.

"Do it," John said.

He aimed right at Damon's head.

And shot.

Damon disappeared.

A crash below.

Elena stared at the place his hands had been, dizzy with shock. Damon. Gone. Shot. She felt like the whole world got turned upside down and shaken out.

She tried to twist away from John, who hauled her up to his angular face, fingers gripping her upper arms, lips curled, eyes angry. He pinned her to the rough, nubby patio wall. She breathed in the stink of his acrid sweat—booze sweat, she used to call it. She had forgotten about that smell. He had put on a lot of muscle in prison. And she couldn't move.

Damon was gone. Dead.

"This could have been so much easier," he whispered, rage and pain oozing out of him. "Come on, now."

"Hell, no," Elena whispered.

A wild look passed across John's face and he tightened his grip. "You are mine, Elena." Pain in John's eyes. He would hurt her now. She felt the old fear creeping its icy fingers over her. "You are always mine, Elena."

Futilely Elena kicked at him—she needed to get away and get to Damon, if only just to touch him one last time. Maybe he hadn't died instantly. He would be alone. Afraid.

Tears fell from her eyes as John wrapped both hands around her neck. She stopped kicking and clawed at his fingers as he dragged her inside and through the dark blur of somebody's room. She stumbled along, choking.

They emerged into the bright hallway and moved clumsily through the jumble of people. She strained for air as they entered the elevator—she and Trevor and two guards. And John.

"Deal with her hands," John said, releasing her. Elena coughed and sputtered, and in a flash she was pinned to the elevator wall, cheek rubbing against the carpeted panel, her hands bound behind her back with something sharp and cutting.

She stayed there, eyes shut, tears flowing as the elevator rose.

Damon. Gone. You didn't survive being shot in the head and falling three stories.

If only she had been braver. If only she had hurried when he had asked her to. She had frozen instead.

She vowed never to freeze again.

John dragged her into a room, shut the door behind them, and pushed her up against it, choking her again. "You are wearing black. I like you in white. First thing, we are going to put you in white." Then he claimed her mouth in a suffocating, stinking kiss.

Elena bit his lip. He jerked away and she kicked him in the balls—and connected. He stumbled away and she tried to open the door with her hands behind her back. She would escape or die. She would never freeze for him again. Ever!

John grabbed her hair and threw her to the floor. Without her hands to break her fall, she fell on her shoulder and banged her head—hard.

He turned her onto her back and placed his boot on her chest, pressing until she could barely breathe, until her shoulders felt squished behind her. He had a gun.

"Go ahead, kill me," Elena said.

"That is not exactly what I had in mind, Elena."

"Rot in hell, John."

John just frowned.

"I will kill you," she said. "I will never stop trying."

"You will stop trying," he said calmly. "You will see."

Elena's heart banged in her chest. He was going to do something with the gun. Maybe break her hands. Or her feet? His cock was hard in his pants. She fought back the urge to beg him for leniency. Never again.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

"What?" John barked, not taking his eyes from her.

"It is important." Trevor's voice.

"Better be."

Trevor came in and handed John a phone.

"Yeah," John said into it, eyes roaming up and down her body. He frowned, and then a slow smile spread over his face. "Decisions, decisions," John said. "Seems there is a body on the hotel grounds that needs to be gone before daybreak. What should we do? Throw it to the dogs, or put it in the trash?"

Elena glared, fighting back a heaving sob.

John watched her. Elena knew what he was looking for—a kind of death in her eyes. The point where she would stop fighting. Once upon a time she would have crumbled for him, just in the interest of self-preservation. She realized with some surprise that now it wasn't even an option. She would go down fighting. She would fight him to the death. She would do it for herself—and for Damon.

John flicked his gaze away, listening to the caller. "Handle it," he said. "You don't want me to have to come out there."

Elena bit back the tears. She hadn't known Damon that long, but the way they fit together—it felt ancient, like they had been connected for eons, like showing up in each other's lives was just the tip of things.

Damon had tried to rescue her, and now he was dead.

John handed the phone back to Trevor, who pocketed it.

"Leave us."

Trevor left.

John turned his attention back to Elena. "Now, where were we?"


	11. Chapter 11

Damon awoke to the feel of his shoulders being wrenched clear out of their sockets and excruciating pain in his toes as he was dragged over what felt like cut glass. He groaned.

"You awake, buddy?" Ric said. "Can you walk?"

Damon tried to speak as Ric let him go. He gripped Ric's arm, swaying. They were in the alley behind the Grill Hotel's pool, heading for the street.

"Elena," Damon grated.

Ric looped his arm around his shoulders. "Come on."

"I have to get back there."

"You can't," Ric said. "Place is full of muscle. Mikaelson's and Jazzman's both. How do you feel? Anything broken?"

"Nah." Damon's thoughts raced back to the scene on the porch. He would let go of the rail just as soon as he saw the tendons in the back of the guard's hand activate, escaping the bullet by milliseconds. He hadn't counted on blacking out. He had meant to slip back in.

"How long was I out?"

"Minute or two," Ric said. "Good job, by the way. You did it—you identified Jazzman. John Lee Gilbert. We have got Associates assembling. Don't worry about Elena, we are taking him down."

They came to the corner of the alley.

"Hold up," Ric muttered. He moved to the end of the alley, checking the street.

Damon tried to focus through the pain. Keep it together, he told himself. "I have to get back in there."

"I can't let you do that. We will draw him out and take him the right way," Ric said. "Look at me."

Damon looked at him.

Ric pulled up his eyelids, one after another. "You have a concussion. You will feel more stable in a bit. But your feet—bare feet—"

"Give me your piece. I have to get her out of there," Damon said.

"Don't be an idiot." Ric grabbed his shirt. "Jazzman isn't going to kill your girl. Look what he went through to keep her on ice. We need her right where she is, occupying his attention."

"I have to—"

"No!" Ric shook him, face close enough to kiss him. "You busted open his identity, Damon. You did it—you just saved a shitload of lives. Do you want to jeopardize that? This situation couldn't be more perfect—John will be focused on her."

"No—"

"Yes," Ric barked. "We are almost there. You remember what you always say? Anybody can carry out a plan when things go right. We Associates have the balls to stay the course when things go to hell."

Things were definitely going to hell.

"We almost have it," Ric said. "We will win."

Maybe. But Damon felt like he was still back in that dark jungle, unable to get to the people he loved. All he could see was the fear in Elena's eyes when she talked about John. And now John had her. He tried to shake out of Ric's grip.

"Don't make me fight you," Ric growled. "This is my mission and I won't let you mess it up, got it?"

"Stop!" Guards were pouring down the alley from the other direction.

"Damn it," Ric said. "Let's go." Damon and Ric slipped out onto the street, practically running, a pack of guards hot on their ass.

The two of them were across the street like a shot. They hit the ground and rolled behind a car. Pain speared through Damon's entire body. Still woozy.

Damon pulled out Shane's Sig. He peeked over the car trunk and took some shots at shadows. His aim was all off. Still dizzy. Ric shot from the other side.

"Do we have backup?" Damon asked.

"On their way," Ric said. "Everyone else is ten minutes away. We can take them. Jazzman doesn't need to know we have a small army in town."

"I have to go back there."

"Not possible," Ric said.

"I will grab Elena and bring down Jazzman myself," Damon said. "The TZ's biometric security is all voice. Voice. I can crack into that, but I have to get her out of there first. I have to go back for her."

"How about you break the security after we have Jazzman?"

"I have to go back!"

Ric holstered up. "Let's scatter."

Damon took a shot at a darkened doorway as Ric ran to a nearby car and he followed Ric closely.

Somebody shot from a fire escape above and they rolled under a truck. A nearby pop and a hiss. Another pop and a hiss. Shooting out the tires. The truck body lowered.

"Dammit," Ric said.

"Now or never," Damon rolled out and started shooting. They ran, covering themselves with wild shots. Amazing how a fire-fight cut your wooziness and pain. They slipped around a corner.

Ric slid to the ground. "I'm hit."

"Where?"

"My left leg."

"Keep up pressure. I have got you."

A guard came around the corner, clearly not expecting them to be waiting there. Damon grabbed him and head-butted him. The man crumpled in his arms. He kept him upright, using his body as a shield, shooting at the rest of the oncoming guards. The guard he held jerked in his arms.

Shot.

Damon felt the man's blood warm on his own face. He shot again and again. Their attackers dropped and scattered.

He had to get to Elena. Damon pulled the dead man back around the corner, lowered him to the ground, and knelt by Ric. "Where is the truck?"

"Too far."

"Like hell. Are you putting pressure on it? Are you able to do that?"

"Of course."

Damon ripped off part of the guard's jacket and folded it into a pad for Ric to hold. He pocketed the guard's gun and crouched. "Grab around my neck."

Ric looped an arm around Damon's neck as Damon grabbed his legs and shoulders. He stood with Ric in his arms, fighting to keep his balance. "The truck. Where?"

"Three blocks north."

Damon took off, arms straining, head pounding, toes screaming. He saw sparkles on the dark pavement ahead and knew he would be going through glass, but he couldn't stop. He rounded a corner and a truck roared up.

The Association.

Damon ran around to the passenger side, opened the door, and heaved Ric in.

"Come on," A black man urged. "Get in."

"I can't do that," Damon said.

"Are you crazy?" Ric barked.

No. He was sane for maybe the first time in years. People he loved had been on that train, and he couldn't save them. He could save Elena.

He would save her.

"This is you messing up the mission. This is you declaring war on Wes," Ric bit out. "This is you ending things with the Association, Damon."

He shut the door with a glance at the black man. The dark watchmaker wouldn't oppose him. Damon slapped the top of the truck and the truck squealed out.

Damon melted into the shadows. Seconds later, a pair of cars sped up the dark street after them. Damon levelled Shane's piece and shot out the tires.

One. Two.

Convenient to have that silencer on there. They might not guess he was still out there. He wiped his face and squinted down at his bloody, torn-up feet.

The pain he could bear, it was the footprints that would sink him.

He ran back to where the dead guard lay. Nobody had found him yet. In another hour the city would wake up, and the cops would be all over this.

He pulled off the man's boots, conscious that he had taken this man's life. That this man had people who loved him waiting at home. It was Damon former self's thought.

Bad time to have his former self's thoughts.

Damon shoved on the socks and then the boots. The pain was fire and ice.

He grabbed the guard's gun and checked the magazine. Mostly full. He stowed it and slipped through the dark sidewalks until he reached the neon-lit strip across from the hotel. Alarms had been raised. He recognized two of the Mikaelson brothers flanked by guards. He could get by the clerks, but not the Mikaelson. He reversed course, considering the liquor hatch. Finally he decided to scale the back porches again. A stupid move.

Which is why they might not be expecting it.

He slipped into the pool area and hid behind a fat palm. A lone guard was out there smoking. Damon threw a rock into a dark corner and waited for the man to pass by. As soon as he was near, Damon jumped on him, covering his mouth and cracking his gun out of his hand with a neat arm destruction, then he smashed the man's head into a post, and locked him to the fence with his own cuffs. The man was out, but he gagged him all the same and rushed off.

He headed to the side and began to scale the drainage pipe. When he got to the fourth floor, he stole into a room and out into the hall, taking the stairwell all the way to the roof.

Damon pushed open the door; nobody up top, as he had expected. The night was curiously still so high above the din of dogs and traffic, and the sky was growing pale in the east. Flocks of carrion-eating birds flapped energetically around, as if they knew about the killing that had happened, the killing that would come.

Ric had a point; he was throwing everything over with this move. Damon told himself that he could save Elena and stop the TZ. It didn't have to be an either/or.

He looked around for something to use as a rope. Bar towels. He ripped a few of them in half and knotted them together. He tied an end to a post and lowered himself to the honeymoon suite balcony two floors down.

The curtains were drawn, but they were filmy. He could just make out a figure sitting on the edge of the bed, bathed in the blue glow of a TV. Too large for Elena. John? One of John's men?

Damon pulled Elena's gun from his pocket and took Shane's piece from his waistband; his next moves were critical; he had to be perfectly quiet so as not to alert the man—or the guards who were no doubt roaming the hall. He slid the balcony door open just enough to get a view in—along with the barrel of his gun.

It wasn't Elena or John sitting there; it was a blonde man. And there, curled up in the far corner, knees hugged to her chest, was Elena, wearing some sort of white negligee. Her eyes widened as she spotted him.

"Hey, Trevor." She stood up. "I'm hungry."

"Wait until John gets back," the man grumbled, eyes glued to the tube. A .22 lay next to his thigh. He could snap it up in an instant.

Elena moved toward the man, stopping at the dresser. Her cheekbone and throat were bright pink. Rage surged through Damon.

The man turned his attention to her. "You are not to leave that corner." He moved his hand to his gun. "Get back."

She flicked her eyes to Damon.

Damn.

The man—Trevor—jumped up from the bed, grabbing his gun. At that very instant, Elena flew at him with something silver in her hand; she was a blur in a white negligee—with a hammer. She brought it down onto the man's head with such crushing force, such a loud thwock, even Damon winced.

Trevor staggered into a lamp. Damon rushed in and caught the man and the lamp. He righted the lamp and eased the man down quietly. Blood poured from the back of his crushed skull.

"Elena! Are you okay?" He went to her, wrapped her in his arms.

Elena gaped at the man on the floor. "Is he dead?" She was fraying—he could tell by her voice.

"He is out of commission, that is the important thing," Damon whispered into her hair. "Where is John?"

"I don't know. He got some calls a while back and left. Thank heavens."

Calls. Probably about what happened out on the street.

Elena looked nervously out at the porch. "We have to get out."

"Don't worry, you are not going out that way again. Who is this guy?" he asked.

"John's right hand man. Is he dead?"

"Yes, but we will pretend he is not." Damon pulled Trevor's body into the chair and sat him there, upright as possible. He had her put on her shoes and socks, and then stood behind Trevor in his chair, holding her gun to his head. "Hit the ground when they enter."

Elena slung on her backpack and waited, gun to the man's head. He didn't like that she had to stand there staring at the crushed back of Trevor's skull, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Damon slipped to the side of the door. "A little help," he grated out.

The door opened and three guards came in, all focused on her with her gun. They called for her to drop it. She ducked.

Damon picked them off with Shane's Sig. One, two, three. "Come on!" He and Elena ran out into the hall. More men were coming. "The elevators! Go for the elevators!"

Elena ran for the west elevator bank with Damon right behind her.

She hit the button and turned to see Finn and three of John's guys barrelling toward them.

A ding behind her. The elevator doors squeaked open.

Damon pushed her inside. "Hit the button for the 15th floor, and keep it there, got it? If I'm not down there in five minutes, you get out whatever way you can."

"What about you?"

Damon punched the first of John's guys, knocking him out cold, then swung an elbow into the jaw of another, sending him backward with a sickening crack. "Do it, Elena!"

Elena backed into the elevator as another guy flew at Damon. Damon fought with small, fierce movements that ended with the guys on the floor. She couldn't believe what she was seeing; he was like a force of nature.

She stabbed the button.

A gunshot sounded as the doors slid shut.

She didn't dare to breathe as the elevator lights flashed to the 16th floor, then the 15th. It was all she could do not to make it head back up, to help him. But what could she do? Her help would probably only hurt him.

The 15th floor hall was empty, thank goodness. Elena held the door open to keep the elevator there, blood racing, ears ringing. She couldn't get the image of Trevor's bloody head out of her mind, the wound had been dark with globs of blood and she didn't want to think of what else; it made her want to throw up, standing there behind him in that chair. She couldn't forget the way his skull gave in under the hammer—it was like a physical memory, living in her hand, her arm. Yes, he would have killed Damon. It didn't make it any less horrible.

She strained to hear sounds, anything that would tell her what was going on. Damon had broken her out and fought so gallantly, but even a machine like Damon couldn't survive a full onslaught of John's men. He wasn't a machine. He wasn't a monster.

She had the urge to cry for him.

A grey-haired man with a suitcase approached. She felt naked in her lingerie. "Down?" he asked.

"No," she said. "You can't come in."

He looked at her accusingly. "I need to go to the lobby."

"Take the other elevator."

He pushed the down button, and then frowned at her. "You wait out here for the next one."

Elena showed him her gun. She didn't point it at him or anything. You didn't need to do that with regular people. The man backed away. She could hear him calling somebody on his cell phone as he left her line of sight. Heading down the stairwell, probably. Alerting the desk. Crazed woman with a gun.

Her blood raced when she realized that the sounds above had ceased.

Damn it. Where was Damon? He had asked her to wait five minutes. She would wait a hell of a lot longer than that.

Muffled thumps from high above.

What did it mean? She ran her forefinger over the dots on her gun grip.

A bang on the elevator ceiling. The panel opened. Feet in boots appeared. Damon! He lowered himself in.

"Oh, thank goodness," Elena said.

His hair was half in his eyes, and a sheen of sweat and grime covered his face.

"Thank you," she said.

"End of a small hall. Highly defensible. It forces them to attack one at a time." He stripped off his guard's jacket. "It is dirty, I'm afraid but you are so obvious in that."

"Thanks." Elena pulled it on over the white negligee she had been made to change into, trying not to think too hard about what the stains were. His brown shirt was ragged and bloody, and he sounded slightly out of breath as he ripped wires from the elevator panel. But the bleakness in his eyes was what scared her.

Because Damon had killed more people. Elena thought about his confession. I have killed fourteen people. It was probably more like twenty now.

She put her hand on his arm. "Thank you." There was nothing to say but that.

The elevator started going down, all the way down past the lobby level, past LL1 and all the way to LL2. You needed a key for LL2. Unless you were Damon, apparently.

The car stopped with a jolt in the pit of the hotel.

"Come on, then," Damon said. They raced through the basement corridors. "They won't expect us to be down here."

"The night guards!" Elena whispered.

"They will be drowsy," he said.

They ran through the lower level maze.

You could hear a mobile phone ringtone as they neared the room. One of the guards was stirring, the other fast asleep. A man lay on the floor, cuffed to a pipe. They hurried on.

Minutes later, they were emerging out the liquor hatch into the balmy haze of early morning. Shouts echoed around the neighbourhood.

"This way." He pointed. They set off running.

"No Mystic Palace?"

"Too much heat," he said.

They headed up the back streets toward the canopied entrance of a market, closed for the night.

"Through here," Damon said, pulling her around the sawhorse barrier over the protests of a vegetable seller setting up shop. They raced through the narrow lane between tents. "Out here," Damon whispered. They snuck behind a generator and slipped out the side, onto a small, dark street.

"Walk normally, but keep to the shadows," he said.

It was hard to walk normally when all Elena wanted to do was run, but she trusted Damon. His shirt hung open, and his chest glistened with sweat, rising and falling as he breathed.

"You used to have a white T-shirt," she said.

"You know how white shows stains."

Damon wouldn't have made the joke if he could see the blood on him. But he had a point—thank goodness the material was dark.

On they went. One block, then another. Damon seemed to be limping. Elena eyed his boots. "Are you sure you are okay?"

"I'm fine," he whispered. "Smile."

Elena smiled at a man pulling aside the gates of a café.

They turned onto another street. Two motorbikes buzzed by. A few cars zoomed up and down. People on the early shifts, she thought. The entryway lights of a massive apartment complex flickered off as the rosy sky brightened.

"That blue Mercedes heading this way," Damon muttered. "It keeps showing up. Probably John's guys."

Pulse racing, Elena bowed her head and turned her eyes discreetly to a car with smoked-glass windows.

"Don't look! Good God, stop looking so alert."

"Stop looking alert?" Elena felt madly, painfully alert. How could she not be? John'd had her. She had killed Trevor with a hammer. And her brother…

"Think of something else." Damon said. "I can believe they have found us."

"John always has good help," she said.

"They will be waiting for backup," he said casually, as if to model the mood he wanted out of her. "Stay cool."

Damon didn't understand: she couldn't just disconnect like that.

"If they think we see them, they will come out after us," he added.

The car slowed, blocking the vehicles behind it. Honks filled the muggy morning.

"Not good," Damon muttered. "See that alley? Get ready to dart in." Then, "Now!" They darted into the alley and ran. They turned onto another street, then another, heading into smaller, more out-of-the-way lanes with uneven sidewalks and shabbier storefronts, all still gated against the night.

Damon stopped in front of a rusty gate and guided Elena into the shadowy corner. "Be small." He crouched and started fussing with the lock. Elena peered inside at what appeared to be an abandoned shop, nothing more than a gaping garage-like stall, empty except for tables and crates stacked in the back. Damon swore, and then he smashed the rusted old lock with the butt of his gun and lifted the gate a couple of feet. They scooted under. Once they were inside he pulled it back down.

"Back here." He led her to the back of the space, where he arranged the crates into a small wall. They hunkered down behind them in the dark.

Elena leaned up against the concrete block wall. "I will never be able to repay you for this. For everything. Two times now—"

"Don't," Damon said softly. "You don't have to."

"No, I was going to die back there. A death worse than…"

"Than death?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"A death worse than death. You have been spending too much time with that John."

"That is not funny."

"I know."

Elena checked in her backpack and almost wanted to cry when she saw Amy in there, coffee mug, dirt, and fragile stalk still intact. Amy the fighter. Amy had survived the trip.

"Got a phone in there?"

Elena handed over her phone. Damon set to taking the back off and pulling out the battery, then he put it back together and made a call. There he sat, wounded and fierce and magnificent beside her, conversing in half sentences and grunts the way you do with somebody you know very well.

She peered out at the street through a gap in the small wall of crates. No doubt Damon had intended for there to be a gap. He thought five moves ahead on everything.

Traffic had picked up now that the sun was up, and people walked by now and then.

Her mind felt electric with crisscrossing threads of thought: her brother in trouble or worse. John was out of jail and after her. The Mikaelson. And had Caroline been in on it?

"Caroline saved me," Elena said when Damon was off. "We were friends in Richmond and she helped me when I needed it most. Why would she save me just to betray me?"

"How long were you friends?"

"Just a few weeks, but…" Shivers crept over her. "No way was it all arranged, if that is what you are getting at. No way was she playing me from the start."

He looked down and started texting. "Maybe she was, Elena. The Mikaelson brothers work with your step uncle. Think about it."

Thinking about it made Elena feel sick. She had poured her heart out to Caroline—she had confided in her.

Damon shifted his feet as he typed, moving them carefully one way, then another, brow furrowed. At one point he winced.

"Your feet—"

"I'm fine." He shut off the phone.

Elena didn't know what to do with this man who seemed to think words could cover everything, this man who lay injured on cell floors making jokes about how many stars the hotel should get instead of saying, Help me. Hold my hand. It hurts.

"All that jerky attitude in the basement. You could have told me what you were doing. You could have let me in."

Damon gave her a look.

"And I know he is not dead," Elena said. "My brother is not dead."

Damon said nothing.

"I bet you anything John did some computer shenanigans where he took over the account from Jeremy and locked him out. Maybe he has been fake emailing to Jeremy just like he has been fake emailing with me. Maybe Jeremy is out there thinking, this doesn't sound like Elena."

"That is one scenario."

"One scenario," she repeated. "Thanks a lot, Professor Devil. I wasn't sure if that was one scenario, so that is real helpful."

"I won't insult you by telling you that is what I think. If you want a companion who will say everything just the way you want, I would suggest a ventriloquist's dummy." Damon pulled the back off again. "Though I can't recommend them in fire-fights."

"He is alive, dammit."

"Elena…"

"Don't bother," Elena snapped. "You like a precise word. Like dead. Can't get more precise than dead."

"No, you can't." He whispered this like it stung. It surprised her; he seemed so impenetrable to her with his hard fortress and his cool humour. Elena had the urge to tear his walls down, to get inside. That man she had connected with that night hadn't been fake. Had he?

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"You could be tracked. I don't see anything obvious, but…" Damon replaced the back. "Stay there." He crept away from their post behind the crates and slid through the shadows along the wall to the gate. When a truck passed, he hurled the phone onto its bed.

Her phone. Gone. Just like that. Elena hugged her knees to her chest, trying to blot out the sound of the hammer connecting with Trevor's head, the way the vibrations had travelled up her arm as his skull gave way with a crunch. She had taken a life. And her brother might be dead, her home was gone, her best friend had been her enemy all along. All exploded in a flash of violence.

"I hated that phone anyways," she said when Damon came back. "I didn't need that phone." And then she began to laugh. It wasn't even funny, and here she was laughing like a lunatic.

The next thing she knew, she was sobbing—great, heaving, all-consuming sobs.

She felt strong arms wrap around her. "Elena."

Elena pushed her face into his neck as Damon pulled her in tight. "I'm sorry," She sobbed into his solid frame.

"No, it is okay. It is okay." He held her tightly, rubbing circles on her back. It felt comforting to be held by him, to have him rub her back. Just a stupid thing like that. "Shhh," he said.

"It is more than one scenario," Elena blurted out. "It is my brother."

"I know," Damon whispered into her hair, tightening his hold, rocking her slightly. "You are right."

"He could be alive."

"Yes."

"Why can't you say so?"

Such a long silence passed, she wasn't sure he heard. Then, "I don't want to give you false hope."

"He might be alive. How is that false hope if we don't know?"

"You are right, that is just me," Damon whispered. "Just me. Bottom line is we don't know."

Just me. Elena tried to imagine Damon full of hope for something; she found she couldn't. "Sounds like you had some experience with false hope."

Damon said nothing.

"Tell me," she said. "Let me in."

"Don't," he said simply.

"You have to let me in."

"No, you have to trust me," he said.

"How can I trust you if you won't let me in?"

"This is not the time," he said.

"This is exactly the time—"

Damon pulled away, finger at his lips. Had somebody found them? He put his attention back to the front.

A ratcheting sound. The gate. Somebody out there.

Her blood raced.

He put his lips to her hair. "Breathe."

The sound stopped. There was shouting. Then nothing. So they had only pulled it up a little bit and then left.

Elena squeezed her eyes shut as the moments ticked on.

"It is okay," he whispered after a bit. "Somebody is out searching the neighbourhood."

"What are we going to do?"

"My people are coming. That's who I called." Damon pulled the magazines out of the guns—hers, the one with a silencer, and the one he had taken from Trevor. Just one bullet between all three.

"Crap," she whispered.

"You can get a good deal of mileage from an empty gun." Damon was animated, alert. "Tell me more about John. He is military?"

"Army Major. Then he went into military contracting. Moving parts and solvents. What is going on? What did he do?"

"Let's just say, he is moving some very dangerous parts and solvents." Damon kept an eye out front, quizzing her about John, his guys, and his travel habits. He drew a picture in the dirty floor with a nail and asked if she had ever seen any such tattoos on John's guys. Elena had seen one of them, a clawed snake.

She knew what he was doing: he was keeping her out with all these questions. Staying on the surface, but she wouldn't believe that man from the first night was an act. She wanted that man back. She meant to get him back.

A dog barked outside the gate and Elena stiffened. Soon there were two dogs, maybe three dogs.

"Strays," Damon whispered.

"Strays telling everybody in the neighbourhood we are in here," Elena whispered back.

"Dogs bark," he squeezed her hand. "At cats, at rats."

"And people." The barking grew louder.

"Don't let them smell your fear," he whispered.

"How am I supposed to do that when they won't shut up? They are causing my fear."

"Take control of your thoughts—take it back from those dogs."

"Right."

The barking kept on, biting into her nerves, growing more and more frenzied, telling the world they were there.

Elena shut her eyes. "I can't."

Footsteps. A sudden car honk made her nearly jump clear out of her skin.

"All just sounds," Damon whispered. More footsteps. The barking calmed then started back up. Damon tipped the gun up. "All just sounds."

"We have to drive them off."

"That will make it worse."

"We can't just sit here."

"We can and we will." He rested a heavy hand on her arm and fixed on her eyes. "The dogs' vocal cords vibrate, sending pressure waves through the air," he said coolly. "Nothing more. You understand?"

Elena nodded. Waves.

"If you make it into parts, it is easier to deal with. Sound alone can't hurt you."

Something clicked into place, then. "That is what you do," she said.

"What?"

"You rob the meaning out of things by cracking them into pieces."

Damon twisted up his lips, as if amused, an expression that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Cracking things into pieces lets you understand more."

"Maybe so, but that is not what you are up to. I think you chop things up to control them. And with these dogs. Nothing but waves, my ass."

A glint appeared in Damon's eye. "So I chop them into bunk designed to hornswoggle folks, you mean?"

"Your jokes. All your words and your jokes, they keep you on the surface. You pretend like there is nothing underneath, but guess what?" Elena jabbed his chest with her finger. "Guess what?"

He wrapped his fingers around hers, eyes dangerous. "What?"

"There is something underneath."

Damon drew her close and whispered into her ear, "Are you putting that in your one-star review?" His lips caressed the shell of her ear as he spoke, sending sparks all through her. "You can't know how I'm looking forward to reading it."

"I will write it," Elena said, her breath was going shallow. "Because it is not enough for me. I'm not a satisfied customer, Professor Devil."

"Dissatisfied?" Damon tightened his hand on her finger and pulled her closer. "In every way?"

"Yes," she said, face heating.

Damon pulled away and gazed into her eyes. Elena knew what he was thinking—the night of the dragon.

His gaze intensified, like he might kiss her.

Her eyes dropped to his lips. "I want what is underneath."

"Too bad." He let go.

"I won't accept—"

Damon raised his eyebrows, nodded his head toward the front.

"What?"

He put a hand to his ear.

Silence.

The barking had stopped. Relief flooded through her. "Oh."

"You see? It worked. We thought of something else. And now here is my guy." Damon rose and moved up along the shadowed side of the stall toward the front where a dark figure stood. If she hadn't known somebody was there, she wouldn't have seen him. The brief flash of glasses could have been the reflection of sunshine off chrome.

The ratcheting sound was nearly imperceptible when he pulled the gate up. A man slipped in. Damon's guy? He seemed to have gotten there awfully fast.

Damon and the man clasped each other's shoulders with affection. Together they slipped back along the wall and behind the crates next to her, stealthy as ghosts.

Damon introduced the man as Tanner

Tanner had short dark hair and glasses and inky eyelashes—he could get a job as a model in a heartbeat, she thought, though the way he moved told her he was every bit as lethal as Damon. And these two had clearly exchanged stealthy-walking recipes.

"That was fast," Damon whispered as Tanner pulled a wig and a cap from his bag.

"I'm not here," Tanner said with intensity, handing him a knit cap. "I was in the neighbourhood saying goodbye to an old friend and I heard it over the line."

"Ah," Damon said, like that was hugely significant.

"Yes," Tanner said simply.

"How is Ric?"

"He will be fine, but you have a problem. Wes is sending a few Associates to get you two to a safe house."

"What is the problem?"

"I believe you are looking at a Seattle-style exchange."

Damon stiffened. "What about my angle? We can get Jazzman's real voice now. I can break that security and take control of the TZ. I just need some quiet, some samples, some—"

"You are being pulled out."

Damon sucked in a breath. Elena realized she had never heard Damon surprised, but he was surprised by this. "He can't pull me out."

"I thought you would want to know," Tanner added.

"Damn right I would want to know." Damon grabbed a wig and shoved it into Elena's hands. "Put this on. We are leaving." He pulled the knit cap over his head, tucked in his hair, and grabbed the gun Tanner held out to him, pulling out the magazine and shoving it back in. He handed her gun to Tanner and Tanner gave him another. They were like a NASCAR pit crew, these two, with their guns and bullets.

"What is a Seattle-style exchange?" Elena asked.

"A bad idea, that's what." Damon shoved Elena's gun in her bag. "Let her have your Sig, Tanner. She shoots."

Tanner pulled a black weapon from his ankle holster and set it in her hand. It was heavy as hell. "For you," he said. "Be ready for its kick and it will treat you fine." He looked into her eyes like he really wanted her to get that, to be safe.

"Thanks," Elena said.

"You good with that one?" Damon asked.

"I'm good," she said.

"I'm parked a block down," Tanner said. "Blue Toyota. I saw Little Hussein's men roaming around five minutes ago, but the coast was clear when I came in."

"Little Hussein's men," Damon said, as if it meant worlds.

"Wes isn't the only one thinking about an exchange," Tanner said. "And it is only going to get worse. Every dealer out there wants to be a hero for Jazzman."

"All the decent holes will be staked out," Damon said.

Tanner nodded and they went on, gathering stuff up.

Elena looked at her socks and tennis shoes and the dirty hem of the white lingerie, hating that these men were excluding her, talking over her head. She had lost so much, felt so alone. She needed Damon to let her in; couldn't he see that? She needed to know somebody else was with her—not some military type or whatever he was, but another soul.

Another walker on the moon.

Moments later, Damon and Tanner headed out; Elena was to wait at the front, watching from the shadows, ready to duck under the gate and slip into the car when it rolled by.

They ambled down the sidewalk with the loose walk of fighters, soft and relaxed, but with a kind of weightlessness, as if they could spring into furious action at any instant. She had the sense of them as a duo, like they had been through things together. They both had that warrior intensity. That high-functioning intelligence.

Fighters. Could that be all there was to him?


	12. Chapter 12

Damon caught Elena's gaze in the rear-view mirror as Tanner sped down the dawn streets. He owed his old friend big-time.

"Nice job, by the way," Tanner said. "It is definitely him. John Lee Gilbert, age 49. Released from federal prison five weeks ago on a dubious technicality. He was in Panama during the time frame."

"What time frame?" Elena asked. "What is going on?"

Damon turned to her best he could without excruciating pain. "Your John has a dangerous weapon in his possession. He is in the process of selling it off to the highest bidder. And it is nobody good."

He saw when the recognition came over her. "You have been hunting him all this time. That is why you know so much about his talk."

Damon nodded.

"What does this weapon do?"

"It can do anything," Damon said. "It can locate and kill one person on a crowded sidewalk, or it can level an entire building or part of a city."

"Like a missile?"

"It is more like a small plane the size of a rider mower," Tanner said, "but flattened out, like a sting ray."

Damon said, "The problem with it is that it has laser weaponry, which hasn't been feasible in an airborne weapon up until now because of the energy demand. But this weapon is powered by a network of lasers on the ground, which makes it very dangerous. If John wanted to, he could destroy the White House, and then he could turn it around and fly it back to Mystic Falls, exploding any jets that have the bad fortune to catch up with it. All remotely."

"And you are trying to get it."

"Yes," Damon said. "The weapon, the schematics, and the location of the ground lasers."

"And he wants to sell it," Elena said. "That is the convention at the hotel. All those guys."

"I guess you could call it a convention," Damon said. "Although it is more of an auction."

"Was an auction," said Tanner. "He is a bit more focused on you two at the moment."

Damon turned to Tanner. "Now that we know his identity, we are good. There will be voice recordings of John in that basement by now. I can get down there—"

"You think you can get down into that basement ever again? The hotel is tighter than the Pentagon right now. Recordings offline, everything locked down and guarded. Top floors are no-go. You think Jazzman hasn't guessed who you are?" Tanner turned to meet his gaze.

"I know," Damon whispered.

"Our people are not happy," Tanner whispered.

Damon nodded. Any Associate worth his salt would have left Elena there to occupy Jazzman's attention.

Tanner said nothing. They hit a traffic jam. Horns honked and motorcycles wove in and out through the knot of cars.

"I can do this," Damon said. "I can take it by voice. I can't believe he won't give me that opportunity." Few people in the world had his level of voice expertise—using Jazzman's own voice to fool the biometric security and get control of the weapon could prevent bloodshed.

"It seems certain people aren't in the mood for subterfuge and science," Tanner said. Certain people. Meaning Wes. "Certain people want the sure thing," Tanner added.

"Certain people need a little faith," Damon said coolly, but in truth, it was a blow to the gut that Wes had lost faith in him, that he had shut him out of the mission.

Elena sat in the back seat twirling a dirty twisty-tie back and forth in her fingers, staring out the window with a furrowed forehead. Worried. Thinking about her brother, probably. It was all he could do not to clamber back there and hold her.

She wanted to think the best. To hope. It was a kind of bravery, and he loved her for it. H would do it his way, no matter what Wes said. And hell if he would let her get used as a bargaining chip.

Ever.

That was what a Seattle-style exchange meant—to exchange somebody as part of the payment for something when you knew it would go bad for that person. Wes meant to buy the weapon himself, offering Elena as part of the payment.

It was cold logic that Wes was operating on, but Damon was working off fire and passion now.

Maybe his efforts to save Elena had unbalanced the mission and set countless arms dealers after her. Well, he would save her from them, too. He would save the whole goddamn world, because just watching her twirl a twisty tie made him feel hopeful. And every one of her crazy words filled him with unspeakable joy. And the way she held her lips when she was angry made him happy, and so did her filthy mouth, and the way she looked at him when he talked. There was even something about those songs of hers, much as they nettled him. No, it was more that they pierced him…pummelled him.

A text tone cut the silence. Tanner glanced at his phone, then stowed it away.

"What?" Damon asked.

"The TZ is on the roof of the hotel."

"So it really is happening."

Elena turned to him. "What does that mean?"

"The TZ is the weapon. John has his toy out and he may be inclined to demonstrate it. He could hold the whole damn city hostage if he felt like it."

"In a way, he already is," Tanner pointed out.

"Ah," she said softly.

"Would you consider him a hothead?" Tanner asked. "A vengeful person?"

"Both," she said.

No wonder Wes wanted a sure thing.

The traffic snarl was breaking up.

Damon turned back to Tanner. "I don't need the hotel recordings. His voice is out there in other places. I don't need much to crack the weapon's security. Prison phone calls—those are recorded. We could get his voice from those."

Tanner looked skeptical. "That would be great—if we can get somebody to turn them over in the next few hours."

"I will figure it out."

"Forgive me for kicking the tires, but even the great Damon—"

"I can do it," Damon said. "A few hours, a few supplies…"

"We have to secure the TZ," Tanner said. "That is still my first allegiance."

Damon was about to say, "It is my first allegiance, too," but he stopped himself. He had vowed to save Elena and get the TZ, but given a choice, he would choose Elena.

The realization floored him.

He would choose Elena.

Tanner turned to him, brown eyes weary with understanding. Damon would choose Elena, and Tanner knew it.

His old friend put his attention back on the road with a sigh. "What do you need?"

Damon put together a shopping list. In addition to clean clothes they needed a charger, food, water, and other essentials. They parked in a ramp for a crowded department store. Tanner slipped out to go shopping.

Damon looked back at Elena. I would choose you, he thought. Always.

While they waited, he made a call to a contact to get the requisition for recordings of John's phone calls started.

"This is a weapon of mass destruction?" Elena asked after he hung up.

"Yes. And I'm going to take control of it away from him."

"But it is not for sure you can."

Damon watched her in the rear-view mirror. "It is what I do."

She monitored his eyes with that intensity of hers. "I was the exchange, wasn't I?"

His gut twisted. He hated that she knew. But of course she would gotten it; she was an artist and language was one of her mediums. "Yes," he said.

"Bait for a trap?"

"It wouldn't be a trap."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the plan wouldn't be built around getting you back. We would take advantage of an opening, but we wouldn't expect one. It is not like in the movies. This exchange would be a straightforward transfer."

Elena stared at Damon in horror. The Association had done this sort of ruthless thing before and he had always gone along. It seemed monstrous now.

"Don't make me go back."

Damon turned—the hell with the pain. His voice, when it came, was low and gravelly. "I won't." He looked her straight in the eyes and made the promise with everything he had. "I won't let you go back."

"Thank you."

Elena trusted him, and he meant to earn that trust. She wanted him to be the former Damon Salvatore, but it wasn't the former Damon who could keep her alive. It wasn't the former Damon who could handle this mission.

Tanner returned with an armful of bags. A very efficient shopper. "The blue bag is food and supplies. The white ones are new outfits. You two need to dress up for the business sector."

"How would you know my size?" Elena asked.

"I guessed," Tanner said. "There is a neck scarf, too."

Elena's hand went to her throat.

Damon could kill Tanner for saying something. "It is not so bad," he said.

Yet.

"But best to be unremarkable," Tanner said. "Go ahead and change back there. We won't look." He pulled moccasin boots from another bag, along with thick socks.

So Tanner had noticed the way he was walking. He had guessed about his toes.

"You didn't have to."

"I think I did," Tanner said.

Tanner would do what he could to help Damon, but there was a limit even to what Tanner would do. Tanner wanted to get that weapon out of enemy hands as badly as anyone.

x x x

 _New York_

Wes stood at the window of his penthouse looking out at the lights along the pathways of Central Park, sliding his fingers up and down along the silk lapel of his Armani one-button jacket. Up and down, up and down, sliding along the cool grain. The monotonous motion sometimes soothed, but not tonight. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the sensation of an ice-pick rammed between his eyes.

Isobel walked up and put a scotch in his hand. "The mama is back," she said.

He lowered his gaze to the gargoyle fresco at the corner beneath the window, where a pair of pigeons had made their nest. He had watched pigeons incubating their eggs and feeding their chicks for three years now. Helpless little beings at the mercy of everything. When the condo board voted to clear the stonework of nests and birds in order to preserve its historical beauty, Wes had fought it. When he failed, he bought out his neighbours in disgust. Some neighbours refused. So Wes had ruined them, and then he had bought them out. Because nobody but nobody stood up to Wes's wrath.

Damn historical beauty.

He put his hand to his head.

"Christ, at least take a codeine."

"I'm fine," Wes said. And if he was going to send a woman into the arms of a monster like John Lee Gilbert, aka Jazzman, the least he could do was stay awake and bear the pain a little longer.

"We will find a way to pull her out," Isobel said.

"Mmm," Wes said. They both knew how that would go.

John Lee Gilbert had first met the Mikaelson during deployments in South Korea while he was with the Rangers, and later as a military contractor. The files Isobel had pulled on him showed him to be a formidable strategist and a fluid thinker with contacts across the world. It would be hard to save Elena, during or after the exchange.

He felt Isobel's eyes on him. "Generals have sent entire armies off to die for less," she said. "This is the TZ, Wes." She wore a chic green maxi dress with gold sandals. They had been at dinner with one of the U.N. High Commissioners, talking him down. The various powers were getting antsy about the TZ. They wanted to move big against Jazzman. They didn't understand that it was too late to move big—not unless they were prepared to see part of Mystic Falls taken out.

Isobel looked at her watch. Had she planned to meet somebody later? She always seemed so painfully alone. She didn't even have a family, unless you counted her adoptive family. Which Isobel definitely didn't.

"You don't have to stay," Wes said.

"I do," she said simply.

Wes nodded. Isobel kept her personal life private, and Wes made a point of not putting too much thought into it, but he knew Association business pulled her out of social occasions far too often.

If only his original plan had worked. When word of the auction had first come out, he had tried to buy the weapon himself through a straw man working on behalf of undisclosed Americans, but John Gilbert had sensed something fishy about the offer.

Well, something had been fishy. The straw man would hand the TZ over to Wes to be destroyed and buried. Once Wes was sure he had all the plans and the locations of the ground lasers, he would have John killed.

Yes, John had a good nose; you developed that, being in the field as long as he had been.

But his niece would be his soft spot. As soon as Damon and the girl were at the safe house, Wes planned to work up the exchange, with or without her consent. Or Damon's.

He would approach Jazzman with a new offer. Cash and Elena. It was an offer Jazzman wouldn't refuse.

A ringtone sounded. Wes grabbed his mobile from his pocket. A voice on the other end. Riley, an Associate and one of his most reliable investigators.

Four words. "They are in the wind."

"You are sure you had the right place?" Wes asked Riley.

Isobel swung her gaze to him. Wes put Riley on speaker.

"They were here. I can tell from the lookout nest," he said. "Maybe they smelled trouble and left. Maybe one of the teams from the auction pulled them out of here."

Wes exchanged glances with Isobel. More likely, Damon had guessed about an exchange. Or somebody had tipped him off.

Riley said, "Maybe he is going for equipment for his plan. To take it over via the voice security."

"And I'm sure he can succeed, given enough time," Wes said, "but he robbed us of that time when he blew everything to hell rescuing the girl, so that is off the table."

"The guys feel very confident he can succeed," Riley said.

Wes sighed. The other Associates loved Damon. But Wes needed a sure thing now. The fact that Damon had blown the element of surprise by saving the girl showed he was no longer reliable.

What the hell had happened to Damon?

"Go back to the Mystic Palace Hotel and wait with the others," Wes told Riley. "We will see what turns up." He closed the line and turned to Isobel. "We can't send the Associates after each other. I won't force them to make that choice."

"Agreed." Isobel drained her scotch. She wore one of her definitive looks.

Wes knew what she was thinking. The Associates weren't the only players they had on the field.

"We have to put Thorne on them," she said. "You know we do."

Nobody knew that Thorne was Wes' man. Not even the other Associates.

Wes shook his head. "Thorne would have to grab the girl and then screw things up and fumble her to our buyer. It would destroy his credibility with Hangman. Possibly even his cover."

"Then let Thorne's credibility with Hangman be destroyed. Let his cover be blown. Let everyone be destroyed. This is the big fight, Wes, and we agreed that anybody and everybody can be sacrificed to win it, even Damon. Even Thorne. If we can't take the weapon away from Jazzman, we need to be the ones to buy it."

Wes stared out at the park. They had been trying to get somebody inside Hangman for years, and Thorne had been brilliant, working his way up within the notoriously cutthroat organization to become Hangman Four. Thorne with his black hair and wild Irish blood—the man was dangerous and brilliant enough to lead the group one day. The prospect of controlling Hangman got Wes hard in ten different ways.

He looked up to find Isobel staring at him.

"Yeah," she said, eyes narrowed. She would have guessed what he was thinking. You couldn't get anything past Isobel. "The TZ comes first," she said. "Think about the Glorious Light having that weapon. The New Tong. The North Koreans. Any of them. We will all be living in burnt-out buildings fighting over dog meat if the wrong people get the TZ. Who said that? Can you remind me who said that?"

Wes had said it. It was true, too. He watched the pigeon mama. "If we send Thorne out after Damon, that is a fight to the death. Especially with the girl involved."

Isobel swirled the ice in her glass. "If we don't send Thorne for her, somebody else will take her. Damon can't protect her—not with everybody who is coming after her."

"He thinks he can," Wes said.

"The arrogance of the overachiever," Isobel said.

She was right, of course. Isobel was one of the best minds he had ever encountered; he sometimes wished she would agree to go back out in the field.

"What do you think happened down in that basement?" she asked him.

"Things got personal."

Wes got Thorne on the line and explained what he needed. Thorne listened impassively, asking only the important questions. There was very little Thorne wouldn't do. He gave Thorne directions to the last known place Damon had been with the girl. With Elena Gilbert.

If there were leads to be gleaned in that place, Thorne would find them. "I want everybody to come out alive, if possible," Wes eyed Isobel as he spoke. "But the mission is primary. It won't be easy—"

"I understand," Thorne said.

"I knew you would," Wes said softly. "Thank you."

Thorne cut the connection.

Isobel furrowed her forehead. "Thorne sounds unhappy."

"You know how he is—half monster and half whipping boy," Wes said. "Kindness spooks him."

So it was done. They watched the pigeon mama.

After a while, Wes said, "Did you know that pigeons are one of the few species that can recognize themselves in a mirror?"

"I did not know," she said.

"Most other animals don't recognize themselves. Pigeons do."

"Mmm."

Wes watched the pigeon mama, wondering what that would be like to look at himself in a mirror and not recognize himself. To see only the endless and blameless world.

x x x

 _Mystic Falls_

Ten minutes later Damon was driving through one of the sparkling, chaotic business districts. He dropped Tanner off when he hit the edge of it, where the bustle of commerce collapsed into a drab residential area. The line that separated the two areas was formed by a row of low-rent business traveller hotels that stretched for blocks.

He kept driving after that, parking some ways away, and he got out with Elena. She wore the cheap blue dress Tanner had chosen, along with a little blue jacket, plus a wig, a sunhat, and sensible flats—with pantyhose.

He locked the car door with a smile. "You packed the pantyhose." Of all the things to take, she had grabbed the pantyhose.

"It is not what you think," she said.

"Not because I like to ravish you in them?"

Elena smiled.

Damon went around to where she stood. "Why, then?"

"John would hate them. And, it is just something of mine. For my birthday." She straightened his tweed sports coat and smiled up at him in his ball cap and wig. "You look so damn different."

"You like me wearing a rig? Should wear rig more often?"

Elena snorted.

Damon grabbed the shopping bag with the rest of Tanner's purchases and set off. They had to walk this last bit to whatever hotel Tanner selected, possibly through a gauntlet of hunters.

They entered a department store with mirrored walls, silver mannequins, and deafening electronica. Up the escalator they went to a display of silver mannequins in beachwear overlooking the street.

Things looked clear—nobody had followed them, it seemed.

Eventually Tanner called with a hotel name and room number.

They headed out onto a different street. As the poor-man's end of the business district, it had the best hotels for hiding—and for escaping. Tanner had a few favourites on the strip.

It was a little risky—they weren't the only ones who would identify this as a good place to hole up, but that would be true of all good places to hole up. No reason to choose a bad place.

Damon worried about Elena, though. It wouldn't be long until everything crashed down over her head—the danger they were in, her brother, the fact that she had killed Trevor, their slim escape, seeing John again. That mini-outburst in the stall was just a blip.

He would help her. He would see her through it.

"Just behind this area is an old city neighbourhood that is like a maze—an instant getaway."

Elena nodded. She carried off the black wig well enough, what with her dark eyebrows, but she looked nervous. Too conscious of being chased.

She would give them away.

Damon slung an arm around her. "Focus on something in your mind, Elena. A TV show or something."

"Okay."

The hotels were on the second and third floors, above the shops. The little doors had lit signs above them. Family hotels.

Her gaze darted all around. Damn. He would spot her a mile away if he was hunting them, just from the fear rolling off her.

"Be anywhere but here. A hunter will notice if you are too here."

"Like what?"

"Anything."

"I can't just disconnect like that." Her voice sounded tight.

"How about a TV show? Do you watch that soap opera with the famous singer?"

Damon could see Elena trying to conjure it up in her mind's eye, practically sweating with the effort of it. She couldn't disconnect. No surprise there—it was against her nature. Only one thing would get her mind off the street. Connection.

He had to give her something real. Something of himself.

Damon took a breath. Was he really going to do this? He lowered his voice. "Remember when you visited me down in that cell the first time? And you talked about having to say goodbye to all the familiar people in your life?"

Elena slid her gaze to him, sensing a ploy.

"I had to do that once," he continued.

"For real?"

"For real," he said. "It was ten years ago. I was riding on a train in Mexico with my parents, my brother, and my fiancée. Rose. The four people I loved most in the world."

Elena shot him a glance, caught by the past tense. "Loved?"

"We were traveling through an area of unrest to visit a colleague of mine. It was my idea to take the train. I was arrogant; I thought it would be safe. We were playing a word game that we loved. The adjective game."

Her expression softened. "It sounds like a game you would love. Right up your alley."

"It was up all our alleys. With my family moving around, we were closer than most families; each other's best friends. You wouldn't believe how many stupid games we had. And Rose just fit right into our world. We were this…family." He took a breath. What had he gotten himself into? This wasn't a story he ever told. But it was shifting her focus—that was the important thing. "I was just a scholar. Damon Salvatore, PhD. We were…happy."

A group of three hunters ahead; it was their stance that tipped him off.

"I had gone back a few train cars to where the functioning restrooms were," he continued. "While I was waiting in line there, the train hit a series of bombs. Everybody in our car was tossed to the back, like dice in a cup. A violent halt. But all the front cars were destroyed. The car my family rode in, totally destroyed."

"Oh, my God. Damon."

"All of us survivors, we were pouring out into the jungle. It was night, middle of nowhere. Just the burning luggage and seats for light."

One of the hunters eyed them as they passed out of the shade and through a patch of sun. Damon cringed; wigs sometimes shone wrong in natural light. Doggedly he kept on, describing the juxtaposition of twisted, burnt-blackened metal, charred corpses, and bright fabrics as he watched the hunters from under his lashes. He didn't know what contingency they were connected to, but he knew that they would spot them if he couldn't keep Elena absorbed. Connected.

"I figured out which was ours and it was…one of the worst. Everything hot or burning. And just…all the bodies. Parts of bodies. It seemed unreal." It tore something inside him to bring it back up.

No. It was too much. Damon couldn't function like this. He would be no good to her.

He said, "There was a study once noting the high frequency of words like unreal and surreal used in circumstances of tragedy. Surreal is used nearly across the board—"

"Damon. Damn!" Elena grabbed onto his sleeve. "Tell me."

Damon swallowed and forced himself onward. "I identified my family by parts. Their clothing. Rose…a bit of scalp with a barrette attached, still holding her hair in place. It was a long time ago."

"I'm so sorry," she said.

They had passed by the hunters without incident. But he could feel others around. Better hunters. The ones you didn't spot so easily.

"There were live people to save in other cars. A group of us worked all night, shoulder to shoulder, pulling people out, trying to calm them in their bewilderment as they died. People who die like that are bewildered. God, I had never felt so helpless. And we would try to get people out only to realize it was a part of a person—you would see that too late. There is a kind of horror in a human body part that no longer looks human," he said. "There was this hand that I pulled out—"

"Damon," she whispered.

It felt oddly liberating to confide in her. "I held it for a very long time. Too long, actually, but I couldn't let it go. I don't know why. I don't know if you can understand—"

"Probably not," she said.

"But I want you to," he blurted, startling himself. "I think you can."

Elena turned her clear gaze up to him. "What was it like? Holding the hand?"

"It was like the world fell out from under me," Damon said.

Elena nodded.

"But not like that," he added. "It was as if, everything was gone. Of me, of the world. Gone forever. I think of it all the time, Elena. That hand. Severed like that."

"A hand attached to nothing," she said.

"Yes. Exactly." Damon knew Elena would understand. "And my world fell away," he added.

The phone sounded. He answered it.

Tanner's voice. "I see you from the room. You are almost there. Happy Traveller. It is the lit sign, middle of the block above the drugstore. Room 308. Don't look around. There is a white Honda heading south. They are searching. Don't know if they see you."

"Got it." Damon hung up.

"It sounds…" Elena shook her head. "So your world fell away."

"My world, and parts of myself. The good parts, mostly."

"People don't lose parts of themselves—"

"I'm telling you what happened," Damon said, perhaps too curtly. "It fell away."

Elena bit her lip.

The white Honda slowed. "It all fell away," he said simply. "I lost the dog's nose under the table, you know what I'm saying? The kitchen hanging with a spatter on it. The telephone voice, shoes in the rain…" Everything that made him human.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"And then you started doing this? This secret agent stuff?"

"Tracking people by language," Damon said, but his mind went to his old dictionary, one of his mother's prized possessions. Sitting in storage. Probably eaten by mice. His mother had sent him off to college with it, and he had used it and treasured it, feeling connected to his family. They had used to play games out of it.

"This is us." He pointed at a blue door underneath a cracked plastic sign lit from the interior by a flickering bulb; Happy Traveller was written across it.

They entered and headed up the steps and into a small, stuffy lobby clad in bright vinyl panels framed by wood. Four ratty chairs were clustered around a glass table, and a gold mobile presided over a dying palm in the corner. The clerk was so absorbed in a book that she barely looked up. That worked. They turned down a slim hall and headed up a dank stairwell.

"I'm so sorry," Elena said when they got to the third floor. "I can't even imagine. The world falling away."

Except she could; Damon knew she understood; this woman alone would understand; the goodness of that so overcame him that all he could do was squeeze her hand. Elena was with him in a way nobody else had been for a very long time. He wanted to tell her more, suddenly, but he wasn't sure how to start.

It was as if he had forgotten how to connect. H had told her this thing, but real connection was like an open valve, and it opened you to pain. He didn't know if he could stand it. "We have to focus, now," he said.

"Got it."

They stopped in front of 308. "Thank you for telling me," she whispered as she straightened his jacket.

Tanner opened up.

"Go on in." Damon nudged Elena forward and she walked in.

"Good day for room service," Tanner said in a low voice. The Association all-clear.

Damon gave the standard reply: "Clears the mind." He followed her in and Tanner shut the door.

Room 308 had pink walls, a small desk, a struggling air conditioner, and a double bed with a jungle print spread that matched the curtains.

"No leg irons." Elena flopped down on the bed. "That ought to earn a few stars from you."

Damon caught her gaze. "It will do."

"You have it for two days," Tanner said. He didn't imply the but. He didn't need to. They had hours, not days.

Damon followed him to the bathroom and was pleased to find a large window that opened easily and silently. "You oiled it."

"Months ago. Still glides."

The window overlooked a sea of roofs and twisty alleys dotted with colourful awnings that would help conceal an escape route.

"The fire escape is stable," Tanner said.

"Good." Damon also appreciated the poor bathroom lighting and a mirror spotted with black where the silvering had oxidized. It meant Elena wouldn't be able to see her soon-to-be-ugly neck bruises. He wished he could race back to that hotel and rip John apart with his bare hands.

"This room has a tell-tale," Tanner said. "A creak that travels from down the hall." He went out and demonstrated it. Sure enough, you could hear a creak when he was three doors down.

The window looked out onto a mirrored building across the street; the blue neon sign of an electronics company down the block reflected off it in wavy geometries. The room would be lit blue at night.

"See the muscle out front?" Tanner asked.

Damon moved to the window, staying near the side. He saw who Tanner meant—it was the way they loitered down on the sidewalk—too on-the-nose. When real people loitered, they had an almost vegetative quality. Damon didn't like that he hadn't seen that man. He had breezed past, absorbed in his tale of woe. That couldn't happen again.

Tanner stood next to him. "A lot of reasons for a guy like that to be out there. Still." Food vendors were coming out to set up for lunch down below.

"Trouble?" Elena got up.

"Probably not," Tanner said. "Just don't stand in front of the window." He pulled the curtains shut and looked Damon up and down. "You look terrible. Sit."

Damon sat as Elena peeked out through a slit in the curtains. Tanner pulled medical supplies from a small box. "Take off the wig." He put a hand to Damon's forehead. "Fever is gone. For now." He brushed aside his hair. "Gash the size of Bolivia on your head. Look at this, your hair has become a pathogen toupee."

"I hear they were all the rage during fashion week," Damon said as Tanner pressed his fingers onto his head, palpating the bump where Finn had bashed his head with brass knuckles. He could feel Elena watching him and not liking that he had made that joke. She took his pain so seriously. It was a strange feeling.

"Take off your shirt," Tanner grated.

Damon protested.

"No time. Do it." Tanner produced a white bottle and a wad of cotton as Damon peeled off his shirt.

Elena gasped.

Damon looked down to see a nasty scrape glowing inside a line of red-pink bruises on his ribs. More bruises bloomed around his arm and shoulder where he had fallen, some impossibly dark green and yellow. And there were other bruises not as bad, red patches the size of fists with marble-sized dots of red inside them.

"I'm perfectly fine."

"Aside from being all beat up with a gash on your head the size of Bolivia."

"It is nothing," he said.

"Nothing," Elena said. "And here I thought you liked a precise word."

Tanner's cheeks hardened, as though he was suppressing a smile.

Damon winced as Tanner palpated his ribs, heading toward the possibly broken one, finally hitting the spot where the slightest touch felt like a dart of fire.

"Here? Here?" Tanner asked, continuing the torture.

"Everywhere. Just patch the scrape and we will tape all around."

Tanner gave him a look, because of course it wasn't just a scrape. He started slathering on the topical all the same. When that was done to his satisfaction, he taped a gauze pad over one of the nastiest of the gashes, then bound his chest; it would at least offer a little support.

"Now the feet," Tanner said quietly. "We will soak them first."

They went to the bathroom and ran warm water in the tub. Soaking would be the best way to get the socks off.

When they were finished cleaning and bandaging his feet, Damon eased on the socks and moccasins. He saw his friend to the door and clasped his shoulder. "It is no small thing, pulling us out of there like that," he said softly.

"Just make it right," Tanner said.


	13. Chapter 13

After Tanner left, Damon used his phone to log into his personal cloud storage. Working on this tiny screen would be hell, but he could do it.

Elena sat on the bed, feet up, eating. "What is our plan, Professor Devil?"

"I'm going to work out this problem." Damon started copying over his spectrogram software and unwrapped the earbuds Tanner had purchased for him. He didn't need Elena hearing John's voice over and over. Though most of his work would be on the screen.

"What do I do?"

"Just stay away from the windows."

Elena stretched out on the bed and opened a package of crackers. "Maybe this is a stupid question, but why not just arrest him or kill him or something?"

"Because he is an army of one with that weapon, and if he dies, somebody else will control the weapon and be an army of one, and the plans will probably be sent all over. We need the whole package. Just taking John out doesn't cut it."

"And you are going to try to get control of the weapon? With that phone?"

Damon nodded. He would sure the hell try.

"How?"

"I'm going to use John's voice to break the security on the control system. It uses biometric security. It is a type of voice printing."

Elena narrowed her eyes. "And it is easy to break?"

"Normal voice printing is. It is a discredited technology, but this is kind of an advanced form, so it is a little tougher."

"And you can beat it."

Damon could hear the smile in her voice. Don't look up, he told himself. Getting lost in her again was the last thing he needed. "Yes."

"A linguist secret agent. Did you grow up thinking, I want to be so goddamn cool someday?"

Damon bit back a smile. "No," he said.

Elena grinned. "You are sure about that? Because a linguist secret agent. It is so Indiana Jones." She stuffed another cracker into her mouth. "You don't want any?"

"No thanks." Even food could dull that crystal-clear space of intellect he needed to be in. They didn't have much time.

"I will shut up. You just let me know if I can help." Her cheeks and forehead shone with sweat and Damon wanted badly to go to her, to fall into her, to tell her more about the horror of the hand. But that his history wouldn't serve her now.

"I need you to make a list of everywhere you think has a voice recording of John. Anything. Phone messages, mp3 clips."

"Got it." Damon felt the hairs on his arms raise as Elena moved close to him, as if she brought her own electricity.

"What?"

"Paper and a pen."

Damon opened the little drawer and produced a notepad and paper.

"I love hotel pads." Elena ran her thumbnail over the edge of the pad making a soft thwick. "And then you use a recording of his voice to fool the computer?" she asked.

"Yes, after a lot of doctoring to make him say what I want him to say."

Elena returned to the bed.

Getting John's password would be the easy part. John's phone had just enough CPU to throw at a brute force attack, although he would have to run it concurrently with the spectrogram processing. So it would take a while.

The really hard part would be the challenge question—the program would ask a random question, like, what is three plus four? And Damon would have to answer seven in John's voice within a short amount of time.

He would use his software to create a library of John's speech, sliced into the smallest building blocks of language

First he would separate individual phonemes, consonants, and vowels. Then he would have to identify the transitions between sounds. The plosives—P and T and K and their counterparts—would be easiest because they were typically preceded by a few milliseconds of silence—that pause where the flow of air was blocked. He could put any phoneme he wanted before a plosive. The other sounds would be trickier. He would have to picture how the lips and tongue moved. Tedious work, but necessary for "John" to sound like a person and not a computer.

Once he had the library set up, he would integrate it with his home-cooked voice recognition application to help automate things. He had trained it well—it could understand him whether he was whispering or shouting. He would say the challenge word in his own voice and it would assemble the sounds for him, synthesizing John's voice on the other end.

Elena finished her list quickly, and it wasn't much. Phone threats she had made digital copies of for the divorce case and "asshole things he said while I was recording songs," as she put it. "Mostly wanting me to be more country western. He always thought I should change my music. I have got hours of music with his voice in between songs."

"Everybody is a critic."

Elena snorted. "You got that right. So you can pull that stuff off my computer?"

As it turned out, he could. Elena went off to shower while Damon separated and prepared the new samples. The voicemail threats featuring John claiming ownership over her were chilling. You are mine—forever.

Damon bristled at the words. And then there were the bits of John bellyaching between songs. Bellyaching. Her term.

John's passwords were starting to fall. Sports teams combined with 437. Got you, Damon thought.

The bellyaches were as short as the threats, unfortunately. Can't you get a more country-western effect? It was ridiculous, like asking an apple why it doesn't taste more like an orange.

But then, Damon, too, had been hard on her songs.

It felt good to parse John's utterances into senseless bits. Still, he needed more recordings of John speaking. There were certain sounds he would kill to have, like the zh sound borrowed from French—the last g in garage. A voiced post-alveolar fricative, rare in English. Garage as a challenge word would sink him unless he could get that.

His email icon flashed. His contact had hit a roadblock getting recordings of John's prison phone calls.

His heart sank. He would fail this mission without those recordings.

Elena came out of the bathroom wearing the blue dress and pantyhose she'd had on before, her wet hair the only clue she had showered.

Damon wanted nothing more than to go to her and kiss her lips and her warm, clean neck, and confess things to her; it was as if he had opened a floodgate, telling her about the hand. He wanted to connect with her and unspool with her. Just be with her. He was so tired.

Dangerous.

Elena needed him grim and focused. He examined the differences between two different uh sounds. People thought there were just seven or ten vowel sounds. If only.

Elena took up her perch on the bed. "What will you do once you have control of it?"

"It depends. The general idea is to shut down the weapon, shut down the auction, then worry about the schematics."

"No, but, what will you make it do? Will you shoot him with it?"

"Probably not," Damon said.

"But you could."

"That is a level of control I don't need. I only have to make it look like it doesn't work. That is enough to break up the auction." Damon looked up and was struck again by her, just sitting there on the bed with the Mystic Falls Post spread out on her lap, fanning herself with the hotel pad.

"But if you shot him with his own weapon, think how poetic it would be," Elena said. "Tell me you at least could, so I can enjoy imagining it."

Damon remembered that sort of revenge fantasy—he'd had it with Merodeador. "With the right commands in hand, yes," he said. "But look, we are using John's weapons against him. Every word he said on those harassing calls, and every criticism he made of your songs, all of that is like gold to me."

"How long?"

"We are far from it."

"How far?"

"Far. And I'm afraid it will be boring for you."

"I got a project." Elena grabbed her pad and paper.

Damon kept on separating sounds, inspecting them and listening to them, one earbud in. He didn't like to cut off his hearing entirely. In truth, he was starting to feel a bit desperate. Things were taking too long. Eventually, he became aware of her humming, like a soft splash of heaven right onto his hell.

Working on a song, he realized. Her dusky, breathy voice was evident even in whisper singing.

Elena looked up, as if she had felt his gaze. "I'm sorry, am I distracting you?"

Damon didn't know how to answer that. She was, yet he needed her to keep going. Her pantyhose was distracting him, too, but he wouldn't have her take them off for the world.

"Damon?" Elena whispered. "I was just working out a tune, but…"

"It is no distraction."

Elena hummed on, but more softly now. Damon picked up his pace. Being near her buoyed him.

But why wasn't John's TZ password falling? He tried something new and the phone froze. He was running too much at once. He needed something more than a phone.

"What is it?"

"Does John watch anything but pro sports? Does he have a favourite city or community team?"

"No. Maybe a titch of college football. Texas A&M."

"Does he play on a team?"

"Why?" she asked.

"He uses a password system for his accounts. Lakers437, Dolphins437, Jazz437."

"We had a garage door password like that. Packers437. I forgot. Wow."

"John wouldn't abandon his system. He has been systematic with everything."

Elena looked off to the side. "Mmm."

"What?"

"A weapon like this, and he uses a password like he uses on the garage?" She shook her head. "No."

"People rarely go out of their systems. Especially John's demographic."

Elena looked into the distance, as if channelling something. "It would be something ultimate. No numbers to sully it."

"The probability of that—"

"Listen, he would want it pure," she said. "This weapon, I i's his big play, right? He becomes rich, he gets me back. It is the big kahuna. The password would be like that. Big kahuna. But not that."

Damon was about to tell her why that wasn't logical, but then he paused. "You think you can guess his password?"

Elena still had that faraway look. "It would be a different class of password. Dramatic, mean, maybe even jokey." She was a poet who got to the heart of things, a type of hacker in her own way.

A poet was a hacker of the heart.

She stared off into the distance, lips pursed in a pale rose, dark brown hair showing red highlights as it dried. All that hidden voltage.

Damon couldn't imagine the world without Elena.

She smiled. Triumph.

"Good stuff?" he asked.

"Only the best, Damon." Elena straightened, made a humorous face, as if to signal how ridiculous John was, how predictable. "My little friend. But spelled leetle or leedle."

"My leedle friend?"

"From the movie Scarface. Al Pacino comes onto some stairs with a machine gun and says, Say hello to my leedle friend, and then he shoots the place up. God, John loved that scene. I wouldn't be surprised if John got the super weapon just for a chance to use that password."

Damon tried the different versions. "Bingo."

She smiled. "Now you are in?"

"I need him to say it, just to be safe. I heard a my somewhere." They went back through the recording together. There was both an fr and the word end, too.

"We get this and we are in?"

"Not quite. Before it lets me in, it will ask me a challenge question. It could be a request to repeat a word like sunshine, or a question—what is the opposite of day? That word has to be in John's voice. I need a complete library of building blocks to work with, spoken in his voice. That is what I'm making over here."

"You can't, I don't know, just talk like John?"

"The size and shape of my vocal tract is too different from his. The software will know; that is the whole point of biometrics. Try to think of anywhere else I could get samples of John's voice."

"I can't."

"Keep trying."

Elena whispered, "Don't let me go back."

"I won't." Damon went back to work, cobbling different elements together and half listening to her humming. He thought about that night when Elena had hummed You Are My Sunshine as he laid his cheek on her chest, and how strangely soothing the vibrations were. He had hated the feeling, like it was too much.

It seemed like another world, him hating something like that.

Even with the curtains closed, he could tell dusk was falling; the blue lights from the nearby sign shone through the filmy fabric, bathing the room in a blue glow.

Another diphthong dead end. He wanted to smash the phone. The drone of the air condition seemed to be growing louder. Was it even cooling the room? He felt hot. Trapped in a dead end.

Damon needed to step away from the problem. In normal life, he would go for a walk. He couldn't do that.

Elena hummed softly, sitting there against the headboard, one leg out at a haphazard angle, the other bent, forehead furrowed, trying desperately to remember.

He went back to his project. He was missing nine sounds. He simply didn't have the parts he needed. Insufficient data.

The mobile vibrated. A text. Another delay on the prison calls. Sit tight, the text said.

Sit tight.

Damon couldn't sit tight. He was out of usable samples. He needed to get the TZ away from a madman.

It was then he realized that Elena had been silent for a while. He looked up to see her sitting forlornly on the side of the bed, tears streaming down her face.

Damon stood. "What is wrong?"

Elena lifted Amy's coffee mug. The anaemic little plant was bent over, its stem broken nearly in half.

He closed the distance between them and stopped at her knees, unsure what to do.

"She is gone," Elena whispered, cradling the cup.

Damon touched her hair, a stroke of his finger, then his whole hand. "Maybe we can put her in a little water," he tried.

"This kind doesn't root." She tipped the stem up but it just fell again. She bent her head into her hand as silent sobs convulsed her back.

"Hey." Damon sat next to her, unsure what to do.

"She is just dead. I must have smashed her coming up here or something, and then I just forgot about her..."

"You are okay," he said softly.

"How can you say that? Look!" Elena held up the mug as if it was proof.

So this was her falling apart. It was always the little things that put people over.

"Here." He tried to take it from her fingers, but she clutched it, looking wild. How had he not seen this coming? Wes would have seen it miles away.

Damon knelt in front of her and put his hands on her knees. "It is just a plant, Elena. It means nothing."

"It means nothing. What a shocker that you would say that." Elena stood, nearly pushing him over, and stormed to the window with the thing.

Damon watched her, wobbled. "Away from the window," he warned.

Elena let out an exasperated huff and went to stand in the corner, cradling the little coffee mug with the broken plant.

"You are okay. You are not going back," he said, secretly stung by her words. It means nothing. What a shocker you would say that. It was true, things hadn't meant much since the train bombing.

"I tried to save her," she said.

"You did save her."

"Does she look saved to you?" Elena hurled it across the room, mug and everything. The ceramic thunked against the wall. Dirt sprayed. She wrapped her arms around herself, sobbing, sucking in desperate breaths, well on her way to hyperventilating.

Damon crossed the room, feeling panicky; he grabbed her shoulders. "Stop it."

She shook her head, lost in her misery. "There was never any use."

"Don't say that!" He cupped her cheeks and forced her face to him, but she wouldn't give him her eyes. "You are not that plant," he said. "It is not you. It is not us. Look at me!"

Elena shook her head. Well, she was hearing him. Enough to disagree, at least.

"You are right here, Elena. You are with me."

She stared off to the side, eyes puffy, nose red.

Damon smoothed his hands over her shoulders. "You are okay."

She pushed at him half-heartedly. "Go away."

"Stop it." He needed her to stop. He needed her to be with him in this. "That plant was defenceless and alone and doomed, and you stepped in to save it. Because you are powerful and resourceful. You are nobody's victim."

Elena looked over where Amy lay.

Damon wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb. "You are not Amy."

She scrubbed her face and pasted on a fake smile. She was so beautiful, even fake smiling. "Happy now?"

"I'm not happy at all." He would be happy if she were out of danger. He would be happy if he could love her the way the old Damon could have. "Do you want a drink of water?" he tried.

"No, I don't want a drink of water." Elena grabbed his shirt and shoved at him. "I want you to go away."

"I won't go away." His lips landed on her forehead. "I won't ever go away, okay?" Damon kissed a tear off her cheek.

Elena stayed completely still. Like she didn't want him there. His entire being clenched in agony.

"Come on, Elena." He kissed a tear off her jawbone, tipped his forehead to hers. "You are okay."

"Stop saying that." Elena still had hold of his shirt. She wasn't pushing him away, but she wasn't exactly pulling him.

Damon pressed his forehead to hers, panting, his nose to her nose. Then he bent his knees, lowering himself to kiss her straight on, pressing his body to hers. She felt soft, pliant. But she didn't kiss him back.

He angled his head and kissed her maybe too hard—he felt desperate to have her with him. Like a madman he pulled her closer, putting his cheek to hers, losing himself in the heat of her skin. He kissed her ear, her jaw, her neck, rough kisses on the most tender parts. He pulled her so close her arms were smashed between them, killing his rib. Not that he cared.

He became aware of her moving, shaking her head.

Damon pulled away. "Do you want me to stop?"

Elena closed her eyes. She seemed so helpless, suddenly. What the hell was he doing?

He drew his lips to her closed eye and kissed the swell of her eyeball, a kiss like a feather, as if to prove how under control he was. "Do you want me to stop?" he panted.

"I don't want you to stop." Elena opened her eyes, brave and brown and shot through with gold. "I want you to mean it," she said. "Please just mean it."

Mean it. A jolt of fear shot through him and he cupped her cheeks.

Mean it.

"It is not in me anymore," Damon confessed. "What you want. What you need."

Her gaze softened. "That is such bunk, Damon."

Deep down she had to know—he had told her as much, how everything fell away, all the good parts of him. He hated that it was true.

Damon shoved his fingers deep into her hair, cradling her head, watching her eyes all the way until he claimed her mouth. Maybe there was nothing good left in him and no heart, either, but he would give her all of it. All of the wreckage, all of the words.

Elena mumbled something into the kiss as she wrapped her arms around him, grinding against him. "More," she whispered. "I want more of you."

He let out a gusty breath he didn't know he had been holding. He grabbed her ass and lifted her clear up, slamming her onto the wall, letting her feel the way he was shivering inside, because he was falling for her. He pressed his steel-hard cock into the cleft between her legs, crushing his mouth over hers. "If I can't be inside you I will die," he gasped.

Elena grabbed his hair and yanked his head away from hers. "That works."

Damon stared at her, emotions on overload.

She smiled, and he crushed his mouth over hers as if to devour that smile and all of her joy. Everything.

"Uh," she breathed, voice heavy with desire. He could get drunk just off the sound of her saying Uh.

"Damon," she whispered. "Is Damon your real name?"

"Yes," he said. "My name is Damon."

"Damon," she said, her voice husky His heart nearly broke to hear it.

Elena tightened her legs around him. "Damon, come here."

But he was already there. And he had to bury his face against her salty-sweet neck to hide the rawness of it all.

x x x

Damon.

That name was real. Damon.

He kissed her neck, ferociously almost, as he walked her to the bed.

He threw her down over the mess she had made of the quilt. "I need you naked. Beneath me. Now." He didn't wait for her to comply; feverishly he pulled off her dress, and she wriggled and helped him, then he took off her underwear and pantyhose. He needed her to be naked.

Her heart pounded. She propped herself up on her elbows.

He wore boxers and he pushed them down, freeing his cock, primitive and thickheaded, as though some force of nature had sent extra cave-man essence to that part of his body. It was darker near the head and totally hot.

This wasn't the controlled Damon of their first encounter who wanted to talk about the words to take her. This was a new man. Elena found this new man frightening and exciting and real as hell.

She scooted away, desperate for him to come to her with that loose, fierce passion.

That glint of humour was gone. Damon was serious, eyes shadowed, mouth in a strong line, bright white tape binding his chest.

"Damon."

"Say it again," he grated. "Say it."

Damon, he meant. His name. "Damon."

Something new came into his eyes. He was shining and brilliant. He crawled over the bed to her, just him and his primitive cock. She thought she would lose it right there—Damon, crawling to her like a beast.

Elena closed her eyes and tipped back her head, baring her neck, wanting to feel him coming over her, to feel him take her like a lion. She would give him everything now. He didn't understand how cracked open she was.

Damon crawled over her until his hands were on either side of her. She gloried in the way his movement stirred the humid air, causing ghostly wisps of cool to kiss her bare, sweat-drenched skin. Her nipples felt rock hard, straining to be touched. He stilled, a predator surveying the full panorama of his feast.

And then he lowered his head and kissed her with unforgiving strength that sent waves of pleasure clear down through her belly. She lay back and grabbed his steely, sweaty forearms as he plundered her mouth, lowering himself, moving against her.

Elena loved the roughness of his chest hairs against her breasts, the feel of his cock pressing at her belly, and the sweaty weight of him.

Damon planted kisses on the tender skin below her ear, nearly sending her into oblivion. Again he pressed his lips to that spot, as if to drink up her racing pulse. She tightened her grip on his forearms as he kissed an unrelenting downward line, sending rich rays of feeling into her overheated core.

When he reached her breast, he took her nipple between lips hard as teeth, sucking and tonguing, feasting on her as he slid his cock against her slick folds.

But really, she was the one feasting, and she would never be sated. She moved under him, panting, burning for more.

He pulled away, stood on the edge of the bed.

"Where are you going?" Elena asked.

Damon devoured her with his eyes, letting his fingers play lightly on her ankles.

Nowhere, she thought, in answer to her own question. He slid his hands up and down the length of her calves, and then he gripped her ankles—hard—and yanked her across the bedspread to him so that she was laid out before him. He gave her a dark look, just a little bit savage, and bent over her, planting hot, wet kisses on her sweaty thighs.

Like a man possessed, Damon shoved apart her thighs and put his mouth to her sex, prowling her sensitive folds with his tongue and teeth.

"Yes," Elena whispered, grabbing fistfuls of golden hair. He had been so verbal before, seducing her half with words, but this was just raw.

When he plundered her with his fingers, she bucked under him, tightening her grip on his hair.

"Careful of Bolivia," Damon grated.

"Oh," Elena smoothed her hands over his hair. "Poor Bolivia."

He rose up, sliding his fingers over her mound, fingering her tender folds. "Bolivia is already feeling better."

She raised up her hips, wanting him inside her. Even just his fingers again. He slipped one in, then two, spreading her wetness around.

"Damon," she said.

"You are so hot when you are right on the verge like that." He touched her with his fingers, possessing her. "What do you want? Tell me what you want."

"You. More," she said as he slowed. "Faster." She gasped as he pulled his hand away. "No…"

Damon reached over and fumbled with his clothes on the floor, pulling up something crinkly.

"Oh, good," she said.

It was a bit of a jokey thing to say—oh, good—like somebody had brought out ice cream treats, but there was nothing sweet or sugary here.

He knelt between her legs and put on the condom, eyes intense and feral. "You are so…" He slid his hands around her belly, up and down her thighs. "So…"

Elena took it as a compliment, when Damon didn't have a word.

"Come here, Damon."

He came back over her, still with that serious look.

This, she thought. This.

He pushed apart her thighs, letting his penis slide against her slippery folds. Then he pressed the fat tip of his cock into her, filling her slowly, as if to wring out every bit of feeling. It was almost too much and she moved under him, urging him on, but he clamped his hands onto her thighs, holding her in place, forcing her to wait, to have him slowly. "I don't want to hurt—"

"You won't."

Damon stayed slow and strong, pushing deeper, keeping control of her thighs, moving in and out, kindling the sparks hotter.

Elena felt desperate and wild and she grabbed his ass, giving him her fingernails. "Come on, take me, Damon."

A whoosh of breath, and he thrust deeper, harder, hair swinging over her, brushing her cheeks.

"Yes," she said, kissing him. "Take me."

He thrust into her all the way then, taking her lips in a brutal kiss. He felt so massive in her—the feeling of him reached clear up to her eyes, and he took her hard now.

"I know I said it right that time." Elena dug her nails into his ass, arching her back, urging him on. "I want you to take me forever," she said.

Damon grabbed her calves and bent her legs up so that her heels smashed into her own ass, and he pushed into her more deeply.

She let out a strangled cry. "Like that."

"I will take you in every way you want," he whispered, warm in her ear. "I will devour you if you let me."

She panted, dizzy from the savage friction of it. "Do it, do it."

He took her raggedly, planting sloppy, frantic kisses on her neck, then her shoulder, and then he bit her there, like he needed to hold on to her with his mouth, like an animal or something. The pain was a kind of wild pleasure, spearing through her as he drove into her.

Damon was fully out of control.

So was Elena—spinning, falling, holding on. From out of nowhere her orgasm grabbed her like a fist, shaking all the sense out of her and spinning her around until she was just stars and breath and a man coming inside her.

Damon cried out. Something senseless.

Elena lay in his arms after, and tucked a bit of his dark, almost black hair behind his ear. There was so much she wanted to say, but just then his phone sounded. He snatched it off the bedside table. "Yeah." His face fell as he listened to whatever the muffled voice was saying. "Yeah," he said softly, clicking off.

"What is it?"

Damon kissed her on the nose. "You are beautiful," he whispered.

"The prison recordings—"

"Just a setback."

"You can't get them."

"No, but it is okay. We will get out of this," he whispered. "The answer is there somewhere, I just have to find it."

"I know you will, Damon."

He stilled, and all at once she saw it—that calling his name was a tender gift. Like a key to him. He kissed her and then he turned over. He lay there naked on his stomach, ass pale as ivory, mind back to his weapon and his wordy science. "I have to pull my mind back together."

"And I distracted you—"

"I was at a dead end anyway. Now I know I have to hack a new path. I—" In a flash Damon flipped over, finger to his lips.

She searched his face—what?

His whisper was soft and hot on her ear: "The creak. Get dressed and get into the bathroom. Slip out the window. Down in the warrens, follow a pattern—one right, two lefts, one right, two lefts. I will catch up."

One right, two lefts?

With shaking hands Elena pulled her dress over her head and shoulders.

Damon was out of the bed, moving fluidly across the room, pale skin bathed in the blue light from the sign outside. In a flash, he was crouched near the door, holding the gun, muscular thighs straining, skin glistening with sweat. But that white band his friend had wrapped around his chest flashed even in the shadows. It made him an easy target.

A beep broke the silence. The phone! Giving them away. Who would leave their room without their mobile?

Damon handed her the knit cap and jabbed a finger at the bathroom.

Elena had to trust him; he seemed to get out of everything.

She grabbed her pack, slipped into the bathroom, and eased the door shut. The window raised up easily, soundlessly, but she so didn't want to leave him.

Damon's voice: "Hold up, Elena."

She got down and peeked out to see Damon zipping up his pants. He opened the door. A man in black cargo pants and a black shirt walked in, arms raised, gun in one hand. He wore black gloves and he held his lips smashed together and aimed upwards, like he was assessing the situation and just didn't like it.

"Clears the mind," Damon said to the man, somewhat nonsensically.

The man nodded and lowered his arms. "Right."

"Come on out, Elena." Damon shut the door.

Elena came out and Damon introduced her to the man—Alaric Saltzman aka Ric. Ric set his gun on the desk and took Damon's chair.

"Your shoulder is okay?" Damon asked.

"Yes."

"What do we have?"

"The auction is off."

"Completely?"

"For now. Our friend, Jazzman John Lee Gilbert, he has decided to hold a bit of a scavenger hunt instead. The prize for finding you and his niece is a tasty one—the finder's bids are automatically worth double." Ric looked over at Elena then. "Congratulations. You are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to this guy."

Elena felt faint. "He is a maniac," she said. "He will never stop."

"Be glad he wants you alive," Ric said.

Damon sat on the desk. "So everybody who came for the auction—"

"Is out scouring the city for you both," Ric finished. "Two hours more in this place, that is all you have got. Tops. You have managed to elude the players who were already in town, but right about now I would imagine the Mystic Falls airport is a who is who of bounty hunters. And then there is Wes. Wes wants you, too. Never underestimate Wes."

"I won't let him have her."

"It is not just her," Ric said. "Jazzman wants you alive, too. God knows why. A hundred G's for bringing you in alive. I would have priced you more at $59.99."

Damon smiled.

"That is not why I came, though." Ric pulled a laptop from his sack. "You are not going to like this. What you are trying, it won't work. The hack won't work. I have been studying up."

"No," Damon said.

"Control can't be shifted in the usual way once the laser head is engaged. It is a failsafe. And Jazzman? There is no way he hasn't engaged that sucker."

Damon's whisper was sharp and hard. "Locked down."

Elena tried to catch his eye, but he seemed so remote. Thinking about that train, maybe. Or the hand. That hand had crawled clear into his core.

Ric crossed his legs. "He knows the Association is in town, and this is exactly the kind of shit we would try. Sorry, it is how the thing is set up."

"There has to be another way," Damon bit out.

Ric's expression was unreadable. "I'm going out on a limb here and guess you have a password and voice samples. Am I right?"

"Yes, but not near enough to beat a challenge word. I'm missing key sounds." Damon checked his phone and slid off the desk. "Brussels was trying to get the prison phone recordings, but it is a no-go. What do you have?"

Key taps and clicks filled the stuffy little room. A diagram went up on Ric's laptop screen.

Ric said, "We have never seen this weapon up close, but I have been going over the work of Eiger, one of the three researchers. The guy was heavy into unmanned ground vehicles. He worked on a four-legged, talon-type robot for the Chinese—the kind they used at the Ground Zero clean-up, only it comes with weapons systems. They are controlled remotely, but here's the thing—Eiger always built in a maintenance override."

Elena heard Damon suck in a breath. Did that mean he was happy? "How do you—"

"I know an old colleague of his," Ric said. "Eiger would have disabled the override before they sold the weapon, but they didn't sell it, did they? It was stolen while they were completing work."

"So the back door is probably still open," Damon said.

"Wide open." Ric smiled, big and lethal. "And I bet Jazzman doesn't even know. It wouldn't be in the documentation. If you can beat the challenge words you can transfer control to your voice and do a self-destruct."

"I just need more samples," Damon said.

"And you have to be standing next to it," Ric said. "You can't do a maintenance override remotely."

Damon leaned cool against the desk. "So, it will be that kind of party."

"Hold on! You can't go back there," Elena said.

Damon cast a glance at her. "Sounds to me like John would be happy to see me."

"Damon!"

"He has to be on site to access the weapon," Ric said.

"No." She turned to Damon. "He wants you there so he can kill you in the most painful way possible. He will want to make you scream and cry and beg for your death. He will want to literally flay off your skin or pull out your guts or something."

"No offense," Damon said, "but your step uncle really is a boor."

"That is not funny."

Ric went on, undeterred. "Jazzman is holding court on the rooftop lounge. We have a bartender informing, but he is scared shitless—he will rabbit anytime now. A lot of cold operators up there, a lot of hardware." Ricwas back on the laptop. "You know what a 360-290 sighting array is?"

"Ooh," Damon said. So he knew. And he liked it.

Ric went on—it was all very technical, something about a laser on a boom arm. You could aim and shoot the weapon with a phone or laptop. Like a video game. They crowded together in front of the screen, finishing each other's sentences, scribbling on the hotel pad. Ric seemed to be teaching him how to control the weapon and make the thing shoot itself. At one point they both paused and stared into nothing. Stumped. Ric reached under his pant leg and pulled out a small knife. Casually as could be, he tossed it across the room.

Thwuck.

It stuck into the wall and they resumed their conversation, like it was normal for a man to throw a knife into the wall.

Together they manipulated diagrams on the screen, with Ric jabbing the keyboard with his thick fingers. He talked about Eiger creations in a rough rumble, like a connoisseur. During another pause, Ric threw another knife. Maybe throwing knives helped him think.

Damon borrowed one of Ric's un-thrown knives to peel a mango. Ric grumbled about the ants. Everybody knew eating fruit in a room meant an instant trail of ants—up the wall, over to the table. Even saliva on the lip of water bottles sometimes attracted them. Damon kept on, casually talking weapons and words with his strongman, knife-throwing friend.

This was his world, Elena realized.

Damon could probably throw a knife, too, except it wasn't his style. Magnificent, dangerous Damon. These guys clearly worked for a government of some sort. The US government? Military? Ric sounded American, although his surname wasn't. Damon had that slight Euro accent, like he was from everywhere and nowhere. Damon was talking about the difficulties of things called alveolars and the desperate need for more recordings of John, but his eyes were on her.

He cut off a chunk of mango and, trancelike, he rose and brought it to her. "There is always a way," he said, handing it down to her.

Elena plucked it from his fingers. "Thanks."

"Always," he said, letting the meaning change to something more important. A promise. Always. A communication on another level.

"Always," she whispered. This was the Damon she had fallen for—the Damon who dug behind language, the handsome scholar who understood her world.

Ric shifted in the chair, one arm over the back, legs sprawled. He wore that assessing expression of his, eyes keen. Ric was as surprised by romantic Damon as she was by covert operative Damon. It was there she got it: Damon hadn't lost parts of himself in the train bombing. He had gained parts of himself. He was all of these things. Lover. Fighter. Scholar. Hunter. Killer.

Ric stood and closed the laptop. "I'm leaving this with you. I'm going to try something to get those prison calls. We have to complete your library."

With that he left.

"You can't go back to the hotel," Elena said to Damon.

"He won't kill me," Damon said. "Not if he thinks I know where you are."

"He would make you want to die," she said.

He went to the window and peered through the gap in the curtains.

"See anything?" she asked.

"Hunters."

"Crap!" Elena went to where he stood and he showed her where to look. Her heart pounded in her chest. "What do we do?"

"Nothing. They don't know we are here. It's the hunters I don't see that worry me. We need to get on the move." Damon turned to her. "I need more samples of John's voice. YouTube clips. Instructional recordings. I don't need much—just a few sounds. The oo of book. The zh sound from garage. The j of judge. The ch of cheese." He showed her the list he had made on the hotel pad.

Just a few tiny sounds standing between them and everything.

"I want to help you. I wish I could."

"It is okay." Damon touched her hand, sliding his palm along hers. A line of ants was already heading in from the edge of the window, trailing up along the wall, across the ceiling, and down to the wastebasket where the mango peels were.

It was then they heard it—the tell-tale creak. Then again, softer.

Damon handed her a gun and the knit cap he had worn earlier. "It is not Ric," he whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

Elena grabbed her bag as Damon pushed her into the bathroom. He lifted the bathroom window. The sea of metal roofs behind the hotel looked almost pink in the mixed light of the moon and a red neon cola sign high in the distance.

"One right, two lefts, remember?"

"Yeah." She put on the dark cap and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Aren't you coming?"

"I will catch up. Don't argue. Don't stop no matter what you hear. Go!" The intensity of his command sprang her into motion.

Elena scrambled out the window and lowered herself onto the rusty fire escape landing. Her pulse raced as the window shut above her, and she had this fear that she might never see Damon again. Like the window was cutting them off from each other forever.

A helicopter chopped above. Probably just news.

She climbed down three flights toward the dark little alley, which wasn't quite wide enough for a car, and hopped onto a pile of cans and newspapers, making an awful racket. Down one side some chickens pecked at feed under an anaemic light that swarmed with moths.

Elena turned right and ran. Buzzing bulbs illuminated her way, strung up via webs of wire. She came to a fork and looked left. Bikes cluttered the way, and a woman squatted in front of a cook stove; flames danced on the corrugated metal behind her.

Dinnertime. She slowed to a walk as she headed past, smiling, looking for the next left. Just then, a gunshot rang out. A chorus of dogs started up.

She slowed.

Another shot. From the direction of the hotel. Damon.

Don't stop no matter what you hear.

Trusting him had worked out so far. Elena went on, past a blue wall with blue painted spikes on top, taking a left into an alley thick with encroaching jungle and lined with corrugated metal full of graffiti.

Footsteps sounded nearby; she darted behind a trash can and drew the big Sig Tanner had given to her, holding the fat grip with shaking hands.

Just kids. Elena pulled the black cap down further over her head and slipped out, gun hidden in the folds of her blue skirt. She tried to not look alert, to not look out of her mind with fear as she walked.

Another right. The next left. The next.

But something was wrong—Elena felt it deep down. She backed into a dark doorway, thinking maybe she should wait. Even the dogs sounded more alarmed than usual. If anybody would sense things, it would be the dogs. Minutes went by, or at least that's the way it felt. It wasn't a good sign that Damon hadn't caught up; it seemed to her that he would get to her right away…or not at all. She forced herself to count to 100, but she couldn't concentrate. Her heart was drumming in her ears.

The dogs were growing frantic.

What if he needed her help? She could backtrack…just to check it out.

Elena retraced her footsteps, doing the pattern backwards, but things looked different. She slowed when she came to the blue painted wall.

It was on the wrong side. Was she going the wrong way? Was it a different wall?

When she heard shots ring out—close by—she didn't even think, she just ran in that direction. People were coming out their doors; she sidestepped them, zigging and zagging her way to where she thought the hotel was. She nearly ran into a woman who was backing away from a corner. She flattened against a wall as a moped whizzed by. She kept on. Another blue wall.

Were there multiple blue walls?

A crash nearby. Elena spun, confused. She ran in the other direction.

Footsteps behind her.

She looked back. Somebody was chasing her.

She poured on the speed, turning this way and that, not daring to look behind. She was just thinking she was home free when a pair of strong hands gripped her from behind and yanked her backwards into a hard body. A male voice in her ear. "Got you."

Elena tried to shake free of his rock-solid arm, but he squeezed tight as a python, crushing the wind out of her. He fished in his bag with his other hand.

She panicked, struggled, but it only seemed to give him opportunities for tightening his hold.

She wouldn't go back to John—never! And he didn't know she had the gun, right? With crazy force, she twisted and struggled, enough to shift her arm down to her side—the just-right position to shoot his knee.

Her heart pounded. Could she? She twisted again, feeling sick to imagine a bullet piercing into human flesh, shattering bone. But she wouldn't go back to John. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The force of the blast shook the both of them, thumping them backwards into a wall.

"Damn!" He tightened his grip on her and pinched her wrist in a way that made her instantly drop the gun. "Damn!" he said through gritted teeth.

Elena could feel his breath jerking his chest. "You got my foot." As he spun her around, she caught a flash of dark hair and wild-as-hell blue eyes set over high cheekbones and a short beard. One of the guys from the hotel—the one everybody said was crazy.

Thorne, somebody had called him.

He forced her cheek against the hard concrete wall and forced her arms behind her back, right around the cushion of her backpack. He began binding her wrists with something cutting. A zip tie. "Takes a lot more than that," Thorne grunted. "Go for the artery next time." He yanked her off the wall and pushed her in front of him along the alley.

Elena locked her legs, dug in her heels. "I'm not going back."

"Yes, you are." Thorne shoved; she stumbled. She had to get away from him and get back to Damon.

She dug in harder. He was limping. Shot in the foot. Surely she could fight him. Not like he would shoot her; he needed her alive to get the money. Every step took her closer to John and further from Damon. She dropped to the ground, right on her ass, allowing herself to become deadweight. "I'm not going back."

"You are going back. The question is if you go back with broken arms or not." He yanked her arms upwards. The pain was so intense, her eyes streamed with tears. "Break them," she hissed. "I would rather die than go back."

"Dammit." He picked her up instead and hauled her over his shoulder, fireman style. Elena felt so helpless with her wrists bound behind her back, but she tried to knee him in the head all the same. She couldn't. He was crazy strong and fast. They rounded another corner. A darker, less travelled place.

"Please. You have no idea what he will do to me."

"I have a pretty good idea," he said.

"And you don't care? What? You have no humanity?"

"Humanity is irrelevant," Thorne growled.

Figures emerged from the shadows.

A voice, thick with a Russian accent. "We will take her, Thorne. Hand her over and there won't be trouble."

"Want her?" Elena felt the world spin as Thorne flung her straight at a trio of guys. She felt strong arms catch her as the world erupted in gunfire.

The next minute she was lying on top of a pile of bodies.

Blood was everywhere. She scrambled backwards, hitting another body. A scream ripped from her lungs.

"Come on." Thorne yanked her up.

She tried to pull away from him, horrified. He had thrown her at his foes and then mowed them down after they caught her. She struggled to free her arms. He picked her up—and then put her down—or more, let her fall again as he fought two more men who had appeared from nowhere.

He spun and kicked one right in the head. The man crumpled. He began to fight the other. Another appeared.

She saw her chance and took it, running like hell in the other direction, zigging and zagging.

She rounded a corner and nearly stumbled flat on her face. She had to get her arms loose! Around the next corner a woman was cooking over a tripod camp grill—the one she had seen before! She was near the hotel. The woman eyed her suspiciously.

"Please help me," Elena said. "Please."

"Come here," the woman said softy.

Elena went to her, twisting to show the woman what she was tied with, beckoning her to hurry.

The woman unwrapped a cloth roll that contained a knife and sliced her wrists free. She offered to hide her, to alert the police.

"No, but thank you." Elena asked directions to the hotel instead.

On she went. Things were looking more familiar. She finally came to the larger alley that ran behind the hotels. She recognized their fire escape and ran toward it.

Then slowed.

Her blood froze as she spotted a lump in the shadows beneath.

Damon.

Elena ran to him. He sat against a wall down underneath the fire escape, holding his thigh, hands wet with blood.

She knelt. "Damon."

"Get out of here."

"You are shot!"

"Flesh wound," he grated. "You should see the other guys."

She looked at him in horror. A gun lay in his lap. And he was so bloody.

"I'm just resting," Damon said. "You have to get out."

"No, we are getting you medical help. You are losing blood."

"But I'm also producing it. I'm running the operations simultaneously."

"Don't joke anymore. I need you to be serious."

"I will get help once my friends arrive," he said after a beat.

"Your friends are coming?"

"Just a flesh wound," he repeated.

"Oh, Damon." Elena squatted in front of Damon. He looked so pale. Sweat on his brow.

"Got anything in your pack you can rip a bandage out of?" he asked.

She scrambled off her pack and dug out the silk scarf.

"That is good," he said. "Got anything gauzy?"

"This is all." She ripped it carefully. "I'm not leaving you."

"If you stay, you will get me killed." He ripped a giant hole in his pants. All she could see was blood inside. He tied the scarf around his leg. "This is just a flesh wound," he whispered. "My guys and I get these all the time." He finished tying it. "Much better." Damon looked up. His hair was hanging loose instead of neatly stowed behind his ears, and the grey shards in his blue eyes seemed too bright, like grey shards of pain.

"I'm not leaving you."

"I mean it, you will make me a target. Everybody is after you, and if you don't take this chance to run, you are going back to John." He glanced over her shoulder as he spoke. "I didn't go through all this hell for you to go back to John now."

"I can't leave you."

"It is the only thing that won't get us both killed."

Elena touched his sweaty cheek, feeling so helpless.

Damon glanced again over her shoulder, eyes roving all around, and then back to her. "You are so beautiful."

She thought to say the same to him, but men didn't like to be called beautiful.

The laptop case lay next to him, and he instructed her to go in there and get a wad of cash. She complied. "Take it and start walking. There are guys with motorcycles down there. Pay one to drive you to the airport."

"I'm not leaving you!" Her eyes were hot with tears. She didn't care.

"Don't make it worse for me," he said.

"I can't just leave you."

"You think I can't find you? You are not a good hider. Elena." Damon smiled, but it was a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You can't be here when my friends come. Unless you want to go back to John." He looked again beyond her shoulder. "Is that what you want?"

"No," she whispered.

He glanced again over her shoulder.

"Do you see something?" she asked.

"Kiss me," he grated with crazy intensity.

Elena bent forward and brushed her lips to his, feeling wild with fear for him. She felt his hand close around her hair. He tightened his grip, then he yanked her head down, pressing her head to his belly.

Two blasts sounded above her, loud as thunder.

"Holy hellbuckets!" Elena looked up, catching sight of his steely arm, straight as a girder holding a fat black gun.

"Stay small." Damon shot again—bang!

Boom. Boom. Bullets from an unseen gun pocked into the metal wall.

He shot again. Bang!

Then nothing.

"Okay," he said.

Elena looked around, dazed, ears ringing.

He tipped his head up. On that roof.

She spotted a body. Two.

"Every hunter out there is now heading for this neighbourhood. Your window of escape is closing fast."

"No."

"I know it seems heroic to stay here, but it is the worst thing you can do for me. If you stay here, you will force me to protect you, and I will die, and you will be back with John. Is that what you want? Me dead and you back with John? Because I'm going to be honest with you: it is not my first option."

"Don't be like that."

"Then get the hell out of here."

"But—"

"I mean it. Now."

Elena stood. His friends were coming. Her presence endangered him. She had to go. And yet…

"What do you need? Runway lights?" He pointed. "Go."

Her heart pounded. Was this it? "Okay. I will wait for you."

"Go!"

Still dazed, Elena forced herself to turn and run, knees shaking so badly, she could hardly keep a straight line.

She didn't want to leave him, but she didn't want to endanger him!

She would go to the airport. She would wait there for him. She would wait there for him forever.

x x x

He would never see Elena again. Damon wasn't one to lie to himself, and that was the strongest probability. They were doomed for sure if they stayed together, but even apart things were dicey. Especially for him. She could still get out of this.

The bandage was getting soaked, dammit. And he needed to move; he was a sitting duck where he was, lit just enough by the ambient light from the hotel roof sign. He spotted a gap between buildings some yards to the right. Bad to use the leg, but it wouldn't be good to be seen. He slung the laptop case over his shoulder, and limped over. Quick as could be he nestled in, pushing aside the newspapers and piling up a few crates to put himself in darkness.

Damon closed his eyes, hoping fervently Elena was on her way out, hoping that she would be safe. She could still save herself; it was a good plan he had supplied her with.

Elena had wanted him to stop joking, to be serious, but she didn't understand—that cool, jokey part of him was the only thing holding him up, the only way he had gotten the strength to let go of her like he had. Letting go of her was the most logical course. Highest probability of success. Best he could do for her.

Hardest-ever move.

But Elena deserved to live.

Damon had lied about his friends, of course. They weren't coming; at least not immediately. Their numbers had been blocked. Wes didn't want him calling. Probably figured out he had Ric's phone.

His leg burned and throbbed. Between the silk and his hand, he was staunching the bleeding—somewhat—but the bullet was still in there like a little piece of hell, tweaking some nerve. Every movement hurt. At least it took his mind off his toes, he thought grimly. He just needed to rest and get back his energy. He would go back to the spectrograms. It would be his fault if the TZ got out. Getting the prison phone calls seemed a distant dream, but Brussels could still come through. He had Ric's laptop in his bag—he could complete his library and get to the weapon. It wasn't impossible.

Just very improbable.

He could bleed out, too. That was probable. Without stopping the TZ. All those deaths would be on him.

It was his own damn fault he had been shot back in that hotel room. His mind had been on Elena when Thorne and his guys burst in. He had shot the guys, but he had let Thorne destroy his rhythm. Thorne was a master at destroying people's rhythm. It was a miracle Thorne had left him alive.

Damon still didn't understand it. Alive but badly injured.

He thought about that time in Elena's room. Lying against her belly and feeling the vibrations as she sang. He had been so resistant to the good feeling of her, as if she would break down his walls, push him off the edge. Now, suddenly, it was all he craved.

Now that Elena was gone.

A pair of hunters strolled past. Damon's heart lifted when he caught snatches of their conversation. So, she hadn't been found.

How long had it been? Ten minutes? Thirty? She could be out of Mystic Falls.

His vision swam, and the wound bit like battery acid. He was feeling hot, or maybe cold. Definitely lightheaded. Maybe he had been too cavalier about the blood loss.

Some kids walked by, laughing. Damon called out, asking to borrow their phone. They just kept on.

This was bad.

Once you started getting woozy, you got worse at putting pressure on a wound, and when you got worse at putting pressure on a wound, you got even woozier. A vicious cycle.

It was probable, really, that he would die now, alone. But Damon had been dead and alone ever since that train wreck ten years ago, ever since he had stood there holding that hand, disconnected from everything. These last days with Elena had been like sunshine. It was a kind of cruelty, really, that he would die when he finally had something to lose. But he wouldn't trade those days for anything.

Footsteps nearing.

Damon willed the person away, although he could tell they were coming in his direction.

This was it.

A voice over him. "Such bunk."

His heart lurched as Elena's head appeared over the crates. "What are you doing?" he hissed.

Elena pulled the crate aside. "Scoot down, Damon Salvatore."

"Get the hell out of here!"

"Scoot down unless you want me to stand here like a fool."

Damon dragged himself deeper into the crevasse. She scooted in with her bag and pulled the crate back in front of them.

"Bunk designed to hornswoggle folks." Elena knelt, pressed a cool hand to his forehead.

"What are you doing?"

"I got supplies. Gauze and tape and some gel that can stop bleeding the fellow at the shop swears by."

"You have to go," Damon said.

"Yeah, well that is way off the table. Tell me what to do with this stuff."

"Elena—"

"I know. Save myself. Leave you to die. Nothing good in you anymore. You and your stupid severed hand."

"Excuse me?"

"We have to stop the bleeding, right?" Elena asked. "Did it go all the way through?"

Stupid severed hand?

"The bullet, Damon, the bullet. Lie back. What do you want me to do? Concentrate." She pushed him gently.

Damon gave in and lay back, elevating the leg. "Roll that gauze into a pad as wide as your hand." He had a good idea what the gel was—it was a good choice, and he gave her specific instructions about slathering it onto the silk and fixing the gauze over that. He had seen a lot of blood in his day, but he didn't think Elena had. Still, she was amazing. Like an angel. No, a warrior.

When she finished with his leg, she arranged the crates to look more natural. It was better, but they were still too vulnerable, dammit. He had one bullet left in the piece Tanner had left him with. Maybe two.

A rhythmic noise sounded nearby. A bouncing ball and shouts. The boys were back.

Thwack.

The ball hit the wall right near their hiding place. A few feet over and it would take down the crates.

Thwack.

"I will ask them to—"

"Shhh," Damon whispered as the sound of new footsteps grew louder. Large footsteps, followed by a deep voice asking the boys if they had seen Elena.

Damon picked up his gun. "I tried to borrow a phone from those boys before," he said. "When I was under the stairs. There could be a slight blood trail from there to here. Not much, but…"

Elena nodded. If the boys thought to mention what they saw, the hunters would take a look and see the trail. But the hunters weren't very polite.

Thwack. That one hit too close.

The hunters kept pressing. "Tall brunette? Are you sure?"

Damon held his breath. Some six feet above them, a spider had spun a web between buildings. It was a beautiful web that caught the haze of light just so.

"That ball will take down these crates," Elena whispered.

He nodded.

More voices.

Thwack.

"Hell," she whispered, eyes shut.

Thwack.

Damon squeezed her hand.

Thwack.

Finally, the footsteps started up again. The hunters were moving on.

"I'm going to talk to those boys," she said.

"Elena, no."

"Sorry, Damon." She pulled out the wad of cash and poked her head up over the crates and then she was gone. He heard her conspire with the boys, speaking softly and sweetly, wrapping them into the fun and excitement of helping her stay hidden from the bad guys. She had money for each of them. And if they did the job well, they would each get more.

Elena was back, arranging the crates. The bouncing had started up again, but they were bouncing the ball on the ground now, counting. "They are to count bounces. And if anybody comes, I ran to the road long ago." She checked his wound. "It is not soaking through," she whispered. "So far so good."

Just when she had settled in, the bouncing stopped. Uneven footsteps approached, like somebody limping. Damon recognized Thorne's voice, questioning the boys.

The boys directed Thorne to the road.

Thorne wasn't easy to fool; he needed to be ready.

Damon sat up, cradling the gun, fire tearing through his thigh. Elena shook her head, meaning no, lie back down. Damon ignored her.

After an excruciatingly long exchange he only caught parts of, the uneven footsteps headed off. Thorne actually believed them? A minor miracle. Unless it was a trick.

And the limping. Had Thorne been injured?

The bouncing and counting started back up.

"We have to get out of here," Elena said.

"Too dangerous to stay and too dangerous to go, dammit." Even she had to see that. Hunters swarming. The TZ on the loose. Everything gone to hell. He had failed the whole damn world and worst of all, he had failed Elena. He wouldn't be able to protect her if they were discovered. She deserved so much better.

His heart beat fiercely, as though his chest was nothing but the thinnest membrane separating him from the world.

Strength drain. Bad sign.

And then Damon laughed. "Stupid severed hand?"

"That is right, your stupid severed hand," Elena whispered back, making herself small with him in the shadows. "I think you got hornswoggled by your own metaphor there."

"You don't know—"

"Oh, I know well enough," she interrupted. "Hands are part of what makes us human and all of that. You standing there holding one disconnected from a body, I see why you took it where you did. All the world fallen away," she whispered. "Doomed to be disconnected. It is bull is all."

"Only shows you don't get it."

"I get it. I think you had to be disconnected to survive—hard and jokey and cut off as that hand. Chopping apart language like you do. I think disconnection is what saved you, but it is not your destiny."

Damon grunted in dissent.

"I'm telling you," she said, "nothing goddamn fell away. That is not how it works. You lost your people in that attack, yeah, but you didn't lose any parts yourself. I say you gained something."

"Elena—"

"Shut up." Elena squeezed his hand. "You tell me, what is this?" She squeezed again.

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"I will tell you what it is—it is a hand that is connected to a heart so big I can't believe it sometimes. This is a hand that helped save my hide several times over."

Damon felt breathless. And not from blood loss.

"And what else?" She squeezed. "What else is this hand connected to? Right now? Who are you connected to right now?"

He looked into her eyes. "You," he whispered.

"Yeah, you got that right," she whispered.

Damon wanted to laugh and cry both at the same time. He had the impulse to make a joke, just to control the situation. Because he was spinning out of control. Because he was falling off the edge.

"What is it?" Elena asked. "You can tell me."

Damon pushed through the impulse to squash the moment with understatement. It was just that the feeling was too sharp, too intense. He swallowed. "It hurts," he grated out.

Elena sucked in a breath, staring at him like he had uttered something amazing. "Where does it hurt?"

He looked at her, thinking about the question. "My thigh." But that was a half-truth. "Everything hurts," he said. "Everything," he whispered. "Beauty hurts. Darkness hurts. Love. Death—"

"Like hell you are dying."

It felt good to tell her. Like something essential, chunking into place. "Elena—"

"What, Damon?"

Damon was silent for a bit, absorbing the soft ring of his name. "It all hurts." The boys outside kept bouncing their ball. Bounce. Bounce.

"I know."

"Sing to me," he said.

Elena went still. "You want me to sing a song?"

"Yes," he whispered. Maybe he wasn't thinking straight, but it was what he wanted.

Her eyes filled with tears. She started to sing You Are My Sunshine as she had before.

"No," he said. "Sing the songs that night we met." He wouldn't blame her if she refused. He had ridiculed her songs that night. But now he wanted to live inside one of them.

He nestled his head into her lap.

"Which one?"

"All I need," he whispered. "All I need."

Elena started to sing, soft and whispery and melodic.

The emotions flowing through him were too sharp, too clean, like they might rip him up inside, like they might rip up the world, but he let it happen.

Damon was going off the edge and he no longer fought it.

He closed his eyes as she sang on, letting himself lost in the lyrics of the song and her voice.

And the strangest thing: it was all okay.

"Elena."

She paused in her singing. "Yeah?"

"My agony fades away," he said. "When you hold me in your embrace."

"Really?"

"Yes." He turned his gaze up to her. "It doesn't hurt now."

Elena narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Damon sat up, ignoring the blaze in his thigh. "I'm better now. I need to concentrate on finding more samples of John's voice, speeches…"

She furrowed her pretty dark brows. "Speeches."

"Have you heard John giving speeches?"

"When I graduated high school, John had thrown a party for me but that was ages ago…"

"Did he give a speech?"

"He did say something to thank the guests. That was before I realised how crazy John is."

"Tell me you have videos of that party."

She pulled a phone from her pack.

"I think a classmate of mine might have uploaded the videos on her Facebook."

"Find it. Make this happen. We need more of his voice." He fished the list from his pocket and put it on the ground. "We need these sounds."

Elena tapped on her phone to find the website. If he could record John forming just a few more sounds, his library would be complete, and he could beat the challenge words.

Outside the bouncing ceased. Voices. He darkened the screen. More hunters.

"I'm not sure whether the video is still there," she whispered.

"Just try," he whispered, listening to the voices. He would pull the recording right into the spectrogram software. The bouncing started up again—the hunters had moved on. He nodded at Elena.

"I got it," she whispered.

They watched the video together but the sound was terrible because of all the noises and background music. He shook his head. No good.

But then they got to the part where John cleared his throat and asked for everyone's attention. The holder of the video camera was closer to John.

"I look at her and I think she is the most beautiful thing alive," John said. "Elena, congratulations!"

Damon and Elena exchanged triumphant glances. There it was—the oo.

Damon adjusted the levels. He was feeling faint, but not worse. He could probably stay conscious if he didn't exert himself. "There is no word to describe how proud I'm," John droned on. "The way she sings, and the way she enjoys the little things. Her word pictures, they grab you."

John went on, delivering more phonemes. More sounds. He started ticking sounds off the list. A gold mine.

"Elena finds meaning and beauty in what other people pass by, but she is the beautiful one," John continued.

Damon straightened. John really had loved her, but he had let that love make him small and cruel. He had tried to lock her down. Damon put a hand on her arm and squeezed. He held it until she looked back.

Damon didn't want to be a small man in a locked-down world—he wanted to tell her that. When he looked at Elena, he felt inspired to be big and true and reckless, to rise up to meet her.

Suddenly her lips spread in a cat-like smile. John had used the word beige. The zh. The last of the sounds on the list.

Bingo.

He started separating the sounds while she took back the phone.

Ten minutes later he had a viable library. He transferred it onto the phone.

"What now?" she asked.

"I test it. Plug your ears if you don't want to hear his voice." Damon whispered peanut butter into the phone. The phone synthesized John's voice perfectly: peanut butter. Elena widened her eyes. He tried it with a few other words. Macadamia. Intentional.

"Damon—" She didn't want him to go.

"I have to. And I'm rallying at the moment." The truth. The pain raged on, but he wasn't so tired anymore.

"What if they take your phone?"

"They are only concerned with guns."

"Let somebody else do it."

"I trained this software for me, and I'm the only one who can get up there alive. John wants to be up close and personal with me."

"So he can hurt you."

"Not if I take over his weapon first."

"You think he is going to let you waltz up to his precious weapon and play it a recording?"

"He won't realize until it is too late."

"You are not the only person who can get on that roof alive," Elena said. "Let me help you."

The thought of her up there chilled him. "Never."

"I will distract John while you make for the weapon with your phone."

"I need to know you are safe." She had been frightened of going back—for good reason. He just needed to get near the TZ, play the Leetle Friend password, beat the challenge question, and transfer control to his voice like Ric showed him.

Simple.

His muscles fired as Elena helped him stand, sending merciless darts of pain through his thigh. Damon gritted his teeth and pulled himself together.

"You ready? Can you stand?" She let him go and he managed to keep himself upright.

"Wish me luck," he said.

Elena didn't wish him luck. Instead, she pushed aside the crates and walked out.

Damn.

Damon caught up to her as she was paying the boys. "What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking about grabbing a cab to the Grill Hotel," she said, "but what are the odds we will get a free ride? I think they are good, don't you?"

"Elena, no."

"I'm done running from John. We will do this together, Damon. We are stronger together." She headed to the main road and he limped after her, cursing. Her arm shot up in the air. A cab stopped.

"No thanks," Damon said to the driver.

"Yes, thanks." Elena got in. "The Grill Hotel."

"You can't," he said, well aware that she could. Even if he wasn't banged up, he couldn't yank her out, not in the middle of all these people. He felt eyes on them. Probably too late already.

"You coming?"

Damon got in, holding tightly onto the metal bar. "Airport," he said to the driver, a large man with a red baseball cap.

"The Grill Hotel." She handed money up front. "The Grill Hotel, got it?"

The driver looked nervous. Damon was the man, but Elena had the money.

As it turned out, it didn't matter. Because a red car pulled up and squealed to a stop in front of the cab.

South American muscle.


	15. Chapter 15

Damon's pulse raced at they were pushed into the Grill Hotel lobby by their three captors, a trio of burly thugs from Venezuela led by a man in a baseball cap. The men had tied their wrists and relieved them both of weaponry and the satchel with the laptop, but Damon still had his phone in his pocket. And his wound wasn't bleeding for the moment. Just blazing with pain.

Elena held herself perfectly upright, intense eyes fixed straight ahead, her hair in a long braid. He would give anything for Elena not to be there; at the same time, he was blown away by her bravery. Facing John.

"Elena!" One of the girls behind the front desk called out. "What is going on?"

"April, I'm okay," Elena said. "Be careful. Be ready to run."

Damon was surprised when the bellboy accosted them—he stepped right up to the biggest of the bunch. "You need to let her go—she works here."

"Jesse, it is okay."

He wouldn't budge; the thug pushed him away. Jesse would have come again if Elena hadn't talked him. She wanted him to warn the staff that trouble was brewing. She had worked with these people for two years, Damon realized. They would be her friends. Good friends.

"Enough talking," one of their escorts barked. The elevator doors opened and an elegantly dressed woman stepped out. Caroline Forbes.

The woman widened her eyes. "Elena!"

Damon could feel Elena stiffen beside him.

"How could you?" Elena asked. "How could you?"

Caroline looked on helplessly as he and Elena were pulled onto the elevator. "I had to. I have no choice."

"No, you didn't," Elena said. "And you have a choice." The doors were sliding shut. Elena stuck out her foot. "I thought you were my friend," One of the guards jerked her in— "but you are the queen of cowardice," she called out just before the doors shut. "Damn it," she said, tears in her eyes.

"She didn't deserve you," Damon said. All the guns and blood and violence, and it was her dear friend's betrayal that made her cry. That was Elena—bravery and loyalty and fire in the heart. He wanted to tell her that and more. There was so much to say—too much to say and not enough time. Taking over this weapon could easily cost him his life.

Elena stared balefully at the twin columns of lights on the elevator panel. The light for floor one flashed off just as two flashed on, and then two flashed off as three flashed on.

It was then that Damon noticed the corners of her mouth twitching, as if she had thought of something funny.

Elena turned to him suddenly, eyes full of laughter. She furrowed her brow, trying to contain her smile. "Escorting guests at gunpoint. This sort of service will cost the Grill Hotel at least one star."

Damon laughed. God, he wanted to kiss her. The man holding him gave him a violent shake, but he didn't care. "I agree," he said. "And binding guests' wrists? That will cost the Grill Hotel yet another half star."

Elena snorted. "It completely lacks in decorum. If the elevator operators at the Grill Hotel wish for the guests not to press the buttons, they should simply make that preference known. Today's traveller does not expect to be brutally restrained."

Damon laughed as the floor seven light flashed off.

"Shut up!"

He was in no mood to shut up, and their captors wouldn't do anything more to them now. The floor eight light flashed on. "The customer service techniques here are woefully out of date," he whispered.

Elena grinned. "Zero stars. And that is final."

Damon watched her. He couldn't believe the miracle of her, or how beautiful and brave she was.

But that wasn't the phrase, not precisely.

She felt good and endless, and he wanted to never stop discovering her.

But that wasn't exactly it. And then Damon realized. He said, "Nevertheless, I give the Grill Hotel in Mystic Falls a full five stars," he said to her. "And I would give more if I could."

Elena looked at him in mock surprise, but he was done joking. Floor thirteen had flashed on.

"It is because of the woman who sings here at night," he continued. The man jerked him harder and he took a step sideways, which sent pain up and down his thigh, but nothing would stop him now. He gazed at Elena. "It is because she made me feel passion again, and happiness, and life—everything I lost. Because you connected me back to my own heart, Elena, and finding you…"

"Damon," she whispered.

"Just listen," he said, even though what he needed to say was too big to fit into language. "I was barely alive before you, and nothing meant anything, but then these last few days—no matter what happens, this has been worth it. Because I love you. And I don't know how much time we have—"

"Don't talk like that."

"I love you—I need you to know. Three days I have known you. I don't care. I love you anyway. You are amazing and beautiful, but it is not because of that, it is more…"

"Damn." Tears streamed down Elena's face. "I love you, too, Damon. I love you like crazy." Wildly she looked at the panel. Floor sixteen blinked out. Floor seventeen blinked on. She looked back at him, seeming so alone. And he loved her so much. "Come here," she whispered in a tiny voice.

Damon surged forward, pressing his body to hers, nuzzling her cheek, finding her lips. One kiss like heaven. It was enough.

Rough hands pulled them apart as the doors slid open. "Shut up."

Damon was shoved out onto the rooftop of the hotel. He stumbled and lost his balance, managing to fall on his non-wounded thigh. It would be a disaster if that wound started bleeding again.

He lay on his side, gathering his strength, taking in the terrain.

The rooftop lounge of the Grill Hotel occupied just a portion of the rooftop, a plush oasis in a sea of buildings. Flowing white canopies stretched over the rambling cocktail area, which was fitted out with white armchairs, sleek steel tables, and potted palms, all lit by torchlight. There were maybe a hundred dealers and armed guards arrayed in and around the seating area, and they were almost all facing east, toward the helipad where three military-style helicopters formed a triangle around the TZ-5. The weapon looked small and furious with dark, blunt wings and a fat little body rife with rivets and receptors. A laser array came up out of its head. The powering laser stood on the ground next to it, beam deactivated for the moment. The ground laser would be hooked up to the hotel generator. That was how the weapon would draw its energy.

The man in the baseball cap pulled him back up.

The excitement in the air was palpable. All these men were salivating over a dangerous toy. Everybody was there—the Finns, the New Tong, even Thorne had made it. He stood next to his Hangman buddies with a cane, foot in a special boot. A sprain?

Damon's heart lurched as the men pushed Elena towards John. Elena was starting to resist; she couldn't help it.

John stood. "My lovely niece."

He couldn't see her face, but the resistance was all over her body, and John was eating it up. He grabbed her shoulders and planted a hard, angry kiss on her lips that made Damon want to rage out of his bindings and lay waste to the earth and the sun.

John pushed Elena down in a chair next to his and pointed at a spot ten feet in front of them. "Put Damon Salvatore there where we can all look at him."

Damon was made to stand in front of the assembly. Quite the reversal after spending so much time watching these men and women from the shadows. He would endure what he had to now; he just needed to get near that weapon.

"Our Associate. I have to say, you don't look so good, but I'm glad you are here, I really am," John crowed.

"He is shot!" Elena raged. "Leave him alone. I'm here. I'm who you wanted."

John waved a hand in his direction. "Somebody, untie him."

One of the Venezuelans cut his bindings. Damon knew what would come next.

John strolled up to him with murder in his eyes and slammed a fist into Damon's jaw, sending him stumbling backwards and onto the ground. Damon sat there, gasping for breath. He had gotten a couple of yards nearer to the TZ. Good, but not nearly enough.

As John stalked towards him, Damon spotted the key hanging around the man's neck by a chain. He recognized the White Crow insignia—it was the key to a workout gym locker. A chain of upscale gyms.

Bingo.

That was where the weapon's blueprints and plans would be stashed. It was a little ballsy to have the key visible—others could guess it, too. Then again, John had a crew of thugs and the most dangerous weapon in the world at his command.

For now, anyway.

Damon stood again, backing up, limping badly. He would do anything to get to that weapon, including allowing himself to look like a coward.

John strolled towards him. He had expected Damon to fight, of course, not back up, and a suspicious gleam appeared in his eyes. Couldn't have that.

Damon spat at him.

That did it. John flew at him, fists flying. Damon defended himself this time, getting in enough hits to stay upright and stay moving back, which he did, until John got him in the balls. Damon crumpled to the ground, nauseated. Dirty fighter.

And he still wasn't near enough to the TZ, dammit.

"What is wrong?" John glared down at him. "You are just a wizard in the booth. A lot of nothing." And with that he kicked Damon's thigh, creating an explosion of pain. Damon's hands flew to it.

John had seen the wound. He had meant to re-open it. And he had.

Damn.

Somewhere far off, he heard Elena screaming.

John turned. He was addressing the group. "I know you have all seen the clips of my TZ levelling buildings, but I have fielded some questions on its ability to pinpoint a human target. And there seems to be some curiosity about what a laser actually does to human flesh. I could stand here and tell you that it heats a person up, instantly boiling the water in the cells and setting the clothes on fire. I could tell you that the skin bubbles and blackens within the first ten seconds. But why should you take my word for it?"

So there it was. He would be the demo. He eyed the weapon on the helipad. "You are mine," Damon breathed, curling up as if from the pain. Discreetly, he transferred his phone from his pocket to his sleeve. He put on his glasses, and then fumbled his hands back to the bleeding wound.

His time was limited now. He thought about breaking away and sprinting to the weapon out of the blue, but he wouldn't have enough time to play the password and answer the challenge question before they pulled him back. And then they would know that was what he wanted.

A crash. He looked up to see Elena running in the other direction. She had kicked over a table. Providing a distraction. It was bad timing, but he had to take it. He rushed for the TZ, phone out, but a guard was on him too fast. He got his phone back into his pocket before he was hauled back to the space in front of the crowd.

"Put him out there in front where we can all see him," John said. "Further out." John directed them to put him between the viewers and the weapon. For the demo.

More men were coming off the elevator. Word that the hunt was over had gotten out.

Elena was back in her seat, watching, horrified. Damon caught her eye and warmth rushed through his heart. They didn't need words now.

A whir sounded behind him; it was the weapon powering up. The laser beam shot up from the ground like a white line into the belly of the thing. John was punching something into a notebook. Damon needed to think fast.

A voice: "Wait."

Thorne stood with the help of his cane, managing to look proud and tall, even injured. "I have unfinished business with this one," he hissed in Damon's direction, hobbling over. "I found them first and he is the one who shot me in the foot."

A lie. What the hell game was Thorne playing?

"He didn't shoot you!" Elena cried. "That was me."

Elena?

Thorne kept coming, gazing at him strangely. A deep scar bisected his cheekbone at an almost perfect forty-five degree angle. The scar had the crosshatched look of a scar gotten very young, stretched over time.

Whatever Thorne had in mind, it wouldn't be good. But at least it was more time.

"You have two minutes," John said. "If you kill him or knock him unconscious, you are the demo."

Elena cried out and tried to get up, but she was shoved back down by a guard. "Move again and I will shoot your boyfriend now," John said.

"He was already shot," she said, crying.

John said, "Clearly not enough."

Thorne stood in front of him, blue eyes blazing. He punched Damon in the belly. Damon doubled over, seeing stars.

Thorne came near, standing completely undefended. It didn't make sense—Thorne was an expert fighter. But an opening was an opening, and Damon took it, bringing the fight to the ground. Thorne cried out, as if he had been hit, even though Damon hadn't hit him.

Damon felt confused, hazy. Losing blood. They rolled.

Thorne was on top of him now, gazing down with that wild look of his, like he wanted to kiss Damon, or more likely, bite his face. Then he whispered, "It is a nice day to die."

The Associates' all-clear code.

Damon stilled. Could Thorne be Association? He took the advantage to get on top of Thorne.

Thorne stared up, waiting. Was he waiting for Damon's reply?

"Clears the mind," Thorne whispered, offering the reply himself. "I know what you want. I will get you to the weapon."

It would be just like Wes to have somebody in deep cover inside Hangman. To keep it from them.

Damon didn't have much of a plan. He went with his gut. "Do it," he whispered.

A blast of pain as Thorne flipped them over, doing a leg destruction that wouldn't have hurt if he hadn't been shot.

Thorne jumped up. Jubilant jeers rose up from the crowd. They all hated the Association.

Thorne pulled a gun from an ankle holster and raised it over his head, shooting up into the air. "I want to see the spy kiss the TZ before the laser kills him!" Again he shot into the air. "Crawl!" he yelled. "Crawl to the weapon and kiss it! Kiss and be killed!"

Damon almost wanted to laugh. Crawl to the weapon and kiss it. That would do.

The man really was crazy.

"Kiss and be killed!" Thorne shouted, shooting the rooftop this time, a little too close. A spray of stucco stung Damon's cheek as he began to crawl

Jeers and laughter rose into the night sky behind him; the whole place had the feel of a mob on the edge. Some of them shot up into the sky.

Thank you, Thorne. Damon whispered. He would get close now. If only he could last. If only Elena could trust.

He collapsed when he reached the foot of the TZ.

"Kiss it! Kiss it!" the crowd chanted.

He activated the recording on his phone, hoping it worked over the din of voices. Out came John's voice: My leetle friend. The whir changed. A computer voice. "Salt. And…"

Damon whispered. "Pepper.". John's voice emerged: "Pepper."

Click click.

"Transfer voice command," Damon said. He gave it a new password, following the steps Ric had outlined.

Click click. The weapon was his. He got up and kissed it. Cheers rose up. Damon turned to the crowd, the weapon at his back. He limped away, just to make it look good, and then collapsed a few feet from it.

"You can limp," John called to him, notebook in hand, "but you can't hide." He stabbed at his keypad.

A hush fell over the rooftop. The crowd waited. And waited.

Nothing happened.

John's expression darkened—Damon could see that even from a distance. John punched something into his notebook. He looked up, then back down. He hit a button and spoke at his notebook.

Dealers started to grumble. One of the New Tong got in John's face.

Damon caught Elena's eye. He needed to get her out of there. He loved her. And she loved him.

Suddenly John was back focused on him. He had his gun out. "What did you do?" He began to stalk towards Damon, murder in his eyes.

Damon had taken the weapon out of John's control, but he hadn't thought much beyond it. This was it—John would kill him. The man had nothing more to lose.

Damon pulled out his phone and dove behind the front wheel casing of one of the helicopters. He tapped the link Ric had bookmarked as a bullet whizzed by.

"Sighting array," he said, sliding his thumb across the screen until he had an image of John on his phone, running at the weapon. The crosshairs appeared.

"Fire," Damon boomed.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw three red beams came from the crown of the weapon and joined into a bright, white line that connected instantly to John's chest. The force of the beam stopped his forward motion, and he emitted a horrible strangled cry. His gun skittered, his arms reddened, and his clothes burst into flames. He seemed almost to collapse and implode on the spot, skin popping, bubbling, and finally blackening as he crumpled to the ground.

Damon stood, holding his phone. The smell was horrific.

"Anyone else?" he asked.

The pandemonium in the audience was instantaneous and violent as dozens of dangerous arms dealers ran for the doors and elevators.

Good. Damon's vision was going hazy now. He could make out Elena, running for him, arms still bound behind her back. She fell to her knees. "Damon."

He held on to her and kissed her for all his life. "You are okay," he whispered, keeping an eye on the fights breaking out at the elevator banks. Most of the dealers were taking the stairs. But she was there. It was all he needed.

Elena twisted and deposited a small serrated knife on the ground. "Free me. Tell me who to call."

Damon sawed through the zip ties and freed her. She punched in the number he gave her, looking so free and strong, hair blowing in the night breeze. She was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.


	16. Epilogue

_NINE MONTHS LATER_

 _COLORADO_

Elena was supposed to be collecting basil, but she couldn't resist stretching out in the sun. She could see Damon through the open kitchen window, making tea in the chipped old tea pot they had found at the antique barn. They sometimes joked about it, their little cabin in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, all rustic and idyllic. The chipped teapot. Texting side-by-side in their favourite chairs. Their red mailbox with a creaky flag at the end of the winding lane. She had started writing songs since she had arrived here, and sometimes song, and sometimes made up silly ones. They got a lot of joke mileage out of it. You got a lot of mileage out of things when you were crazy in love.

They had spent that morning working at their kitchen table, her on her songs, and him on his big database project.

Damon wasn't out in the field anymore with his shadowy cabal, as she called it—those days were over. But the voice and image database and diction recognition software he was working on would make a huge difference for his friends back in the field. It was the linguistics project of a lifetime, he always said, and he loved working on it so much, he sometimes forgot to eat. He really was just a word nerd when you came down to it. And so was she. She would work on her songs, and sometimes sing in the local coffeehouse.

Language was everything.

Yet not.

Elena had missed Mystic Falls, and she missed the friends she had made, although she didn't miss the Mikaelson brothers. The hotel was shut down after the auction, and Conor, Elijah and Klaus were hauled off to jail. John had killed Finn. Caroline was by herself, running one of the other hotels. She had written Elena a letter a month back, begging her forgiveness. Elena needed to think about that. It was a lot to forgive, what Caroline had done.

Jeremy was rescued and he was living happily in Texas. Elena had visited him briefly before moving to Colorado.

The door creaked open. Hedley, their old rescue dog, came bounding out first. She felt his nose on her toe.

Damon was taking a bit more time; he still needed to use a cane—for at least three more months, the doctors told him.

He had nearly died.

Elena couldn't think what would her life turn out to be if Damon had died.

She shaded her eyes with her hand and smiled when he reached her. He was like a glorious god up there, looking dangerously sexy and happy. "What do you think you are doing?" she asked.

Damon smiled at her. "I could ask you the same thing. I believe you had a mission out here."

"I was looking at the sky," she said.

"Oh, yeah?" Damon lowered himself to the ground and stretched out beside her. The sky was like a lazy bowl of delicious, delicious blue that was darker in the centre. But he was so much more delicious. He turned onto his side. "I have something for you." He handed her a bright paper package. A book. A big one.

"What is this?"

"A gift," he said.

Elena smiled up at him and sat. "For what?"

"Open it."

She ripped off the paper. There inside was an old dictionary. Beautiful raised letters, well worn, well loved. She knew what it was before he told her—the dictionary that had meant so much to him before the train bombing so many years ago.

"My mother's," Damon said. "I had a few things sent from storage. From before."

Elena touched it reverently. Jeremy had been asking her when Damon would put a ring on her finger, but this was bigger. So much bigger, so much more personal, more meaningful.

"Thank you."

"I love you, you know," he said. "I really love you, Elena."

Elena turned on her side and propped her head up on her elbow. "I love you, too." She looked at the dictionary. This book was more than a dictionary. It was dreams. Goodness. The future. Family. Hope. Play.

"You think I'm going to sit around looking things up for you now?" she asked in a small voice, not wanting to ruin the moment with too much seriousness. "I'm not your personal assistant."

"You will look things up for me." Damon was having none of it. "Always."

"Always," she whispered.

Damon kissed her lightly, warm lips over hers, letting the book slide into the clover. Elena pulled him nearer, messing up his hair, enjoying his warmth, his weight.

They both lay back after a spell, breathless, looking at the sky, which seemed almost to vibrate with blue.

She fumbled for his hand and found it.

Two souls, battered and broken, had finally found each other. They had found each other.

 _THE END_


End file.
